The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the Indian non-governmental industry body of telecom operators of India has asked for aid from the Maharashtra Government to evade the network outages in the city of Pune. The issue arises as the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has issued letters/notices to TSPs and cable TV operators demanding payment of charges for the regularization of aerial OFCs within its municipal limits. It is to be noted that telecom service providers have already laid aerial OFCs across Maharashtra, including Pune. Let’s find out more.
The Absence of a Framework
Telecom Service Providers have laid down aerial OFCs across the state of Maharashtra to fulfil the National Broadband Mission and for the realization of the ‘Gati Shakti’ mission by the Government of India. The aerial OFCs down by the operators are in compliance with all the requirements and conditions of the License issued by DoT as per the governing legal framework for the OFCs/ROWS. But the PMC is demanding the payment of charges and apparently, the Standing Committee and the General Body of PMC have passed the resolution for such demand. It is very crucial to have incessant telecom connectivity during these challenging times, in particular, not only for the continuity of business and economy but also for the education of children and management of health infrastructure. However, the discrepancy in ROW policy is causing interruptions in the rollout of telecom infrastructure throughout the city of Pune. COAI has also informed that extensive laying of OFCs has commenced and is still underway by its member Telecom Service Providers (TSPs). The root cause of the whole scenario, however, seems to be the unavailability of provision for the deployment of aerial fibre in the State under the Maharashtra State Telecom Infrastructure Policy. COAI had already requested the state government to commence the process of establishing the framework for aerial OFCs before the laying of the network. The absence of any sort of framework for the deployment of overhead OFCs makes the charges imposed by PMC totally subjective and unjustified. The Director-General of COAI, Lt. Gen. Dr SP Kochhar, said in a statement that the industry is facing issues in Pune due to the absence of a framework for laying overhead OFC network, and PMC is demanding an excessive amount of charges for the regularisation of telecom infrastructure. He added that COAI had sought the support of the Maharashtra Government for their urgent intervention to avoid any network disruptions in the city.
