"Under the company's national campaign of Indus Carbon Abatement Program, it has declared several cities in India as green cities." Sameer Sinha, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer,Indus Towers Limited

Power costs remain the biggest concern for tower companies. Given the high cost of diesel, this form of power will be unsustainable over the longer run. It is essential that the industry takes steps toward the use of green energy to power its sites. Indus Towers is committed to reducing diesel consumption at each site and add value to the environment. Under the company's national campaign of Indus Carbon Abatement Program, it has declared several cities in India as green cities. They include Ahmedabad, Gandhi Nagar, Patan, Palanpur, Chandigarh, Kolkata, and Mumbai, where Indus has eliminated the use of diesel at all sites in these cities.

The company's strategy for reducing diesel consumption at each of the sites is not only limited to usage of alternative energy to power towers, but also entails all other aspects like using green equipment to follow a process that puts less impact on the environment, design of passive telecom sites and using a business model that advocates greener ways of doing business. Indus plans to manage its network operations by eliminating diesel gensets running at the site by augmenting electricity supply/battery bank/other technology initiative (deployment of free cooling unit, inverter and other technical solutions) without compromising on network connectivity. This campaign has helped Indus reduce usage of 62 million liters of diesel in the last two years and the company endeavors to reduce it further every year.

Going forward, Indus envisages to promote the Green Concept to its sites rather than cities, whereby Indus shall focus on making a site green and increasing their portfolio. As of August 2012, Indus had 12,000 green sites and the company plans to have 20,000 green sites by the end of March 2013. The company is planning to deploy all possible solutions to power telecom towers in the near future and plan to be the largest green energy deployment in the world for telecom infrastructure industry. Currently, Indus has one of the largest portfolios of green sites among all telecom companies in India

On new radiation norms set by the government

EMF norms are to be complied with by telecom operators and they are taking the necessary steps.

On major policies or regulatory issues

License fee on IP-I would tantamount to double taxation as telecom operators are already paying a share of their total revenues to the government and tower companies are part of the telecom value chain. Overall clarity on spectrum and telecom policy is expected to provide stability and growth to the industry.

On growth plans

Like all industries, Quality of Service (QoS) will be a differentiator in the telecom infrastructure industry too. Indus will continue to focus on uptime, energy efficiency, green energy solutions and expanding its product offerings. Rollout for data services is also a key focus area for 2012-13.

The company will continue to make substantial efforts to expand its reach and tenancies in rural and un-served areas as well as urban areas, depending on customer requirements. The focus of the company is on organic growth.

Indus being a B2B company will keep a close watch on the market and will take up any business, which is in sync with its current business and which makes sense to operators. The company is continuously scanning new business opportunities.