’16 of 37 states aligned with DoT’s infra roll out rules’

New Delhi, Feb 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) Only 16 out of the 37 states/Union Territories in India have aligned with the RoW (Right of Way) Rules, 2016, issued by the Department of Telecom, even after four years, which is jeopardising the rolling out of telecom infrastructure including the towers, laying fibre cable in those states which ultimately affects the call quality, increases network congestion and call drops.

Out of the 37 States/UTs, only 16 states have broadly aligned their policy with RoW Rules 2016 and the other remaining states still need to align their policy with Row Rules 2016, industry body Taipa (Towers and Infrastructure Providers Association) has rued.

"A robust telecom infrastructure will play a key role in seamless connectivity, which is the essence of true "Digitization". India still needs more than 1,00,000 towers to provide quality services and cater an active subscriber base of more than a billion consumers," Taipa said.

The RoW rules, notified way back in November 2016, provide for a framework to give approvals for setting up of telecom towers and laying of fibre cables and settle disputes in a time-bound manner, as well as improve coordination between companies and the State government authorities and local bodies. It also prescribes for setting up a web-based online portal for a single window clearance mechanism to ensure timebound approvals.

Making a special mention of the Karnataka government for not aligning with the RoW rules, Taipa said the state is not adopting RoW Rules 2016 issued by the DoT.

"On the contrary, the Urban Development Department (UDD) in Karnataka, which seems to be responsible for framing the policy for installation of telecom infrastructure in the State has come out with a Policy in May 2019 which is completely misaligned with the Indian Telegraph RoW Rules 2016 of the Government of India. Not only this, the policy as issued by the State government has gone even beyond and prescribed many restrictions for placement of telecom infrastructure and the fee that is required to be paid to the State government for permission is prescribed at Rs 1 lakh which is up to 10 times higher than that prescribed by the Central Government. Further, the provisions regarding single window clearance and standardization of RoW rules November 2016, is missing in the policy," Taipa pointed.

Last year in May, DoT had asked the Karnataka government to align its state infrastructure roll out policy with the Centre's RoW rules following incidents of cable cutting by the local municipal body in Bengaluru.

The DoT in a letter dated May 1 to the state government had said that the proposed regulation in Karnataka for telecom infrastructure roll out is not aligned with the Right of Way policy notification of November 2016 after Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had ordered to cut down telecom cables laid over the ground, citing them to be non-compliant with existing norms, and has demanded fees from companies to lay them underground.

Such policy anomaly in the States will deprive citizens and especially from seamless network and Internet connectivity and impede rollout of new technologies like 5G, M2M/IoT etc in the various States besides seriously impacting various ambitious programmes of the Government of India such as Digital India, Smart City, financial inclusion etc, Taipa said.

"The world is looking towards new technology, global countries are looking towards India playing a major role in the development of 5G, but for achieving this we need a robust digital telecom infrastructure in India. Government needs to come up with some relief for the telecom industry for the innovation of new technologies and limitless Internet connection in India," T. R. Dua, Director-General, Taipa said.

Source: IANS