"We are prepared to issue licences to private land-phone companies to operate in the central zone. We expect to offer the licences by the end of this month," BTRC Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Manjurul Alam told a private television channel yesterday.

BTRC is also pondering about tagging a set of conditions with the licences.

"All of the companies are interested to operate in Dhaka as the profit margin is higher here. We will tag a condition that any company interested to operate in Dhaka is obliged to expand their activities nationwide and this is mandatory," said the BTRC chairman.

Any company failing to expand their activities outside Dhaka as per its plan submitted to the commission will be fined a huge amount, he said.

The regulatory authority, however, is yet to finalise the licence fees and the number of such licence to be awarded.

The BTRC made the delayed move to end the hassles people had to undergo in getting the state-run land phone connections or transferring their phones to new addresses.

The BRTC chairman said they will not renew the licences of companies that had been awarded licences earlier but have not yet gone into operation.