Jio execs to fulfill Punjab govt officers on persevering with tower assaults

Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) is prone to meet Punjab state authorities officers shortly on the again of 1450-plus telecom towers getting vandalised by protesting farmers, which has impacted connectivity within the state. The subsequent set of conferences are being deliberate with appeals from even Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and the tower business having executed little to assaults on Jio-owned and operated towers.

“Last week Jio officials had met the director-general of police (DGP) and they have been meeting the senior superintendent of police (SSP) in the affected areas and regularly filing FIRs. But despite that power supply of 1400 plus towers were impacted,” mentioned an individual conscious of the developments. “There is likely to be more meetings with the senior state government officials in the coming days,” he added. Jio didn’t reply to ET’s queries.

Telecom providers have been disrupted in Punjab after farmer protesters disconnected energy provide and minimize the fibre of greater than 1450 telecom towers, most of which belonged to or had been being utilized by Jio. Vandalism of the telecom towers continued over the weekend regardless of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s enchantment on December 25 to protesting farmers to not inconvenience most of the people and present restraint like they did in previous few months of protests. Punjab has some 40 million cell phone customers, whereas Jio has some 14 million within the state.

Infact on December 24, a letter from Director Industries and Commerce, Punjab, to the DGP requested safety of the tower websites, highlighting compelled shutdowns in Bathinda and Hoshiarpur districts of the state. The above request got here on the again of an earlier letter dated December 22, from Tower and Infrastructure Association of India (TAIPA) to Inspector General of Police (IGP) highlighting risk to towers, staff, technicians and requesting “urgent intervention” from the state police.

ET has a duplicate of each the letters. The assaults by protesting farmers on infrastructure supporting Jio’s community comes amid hypothesis that the brand new farm legal guidelines allegedly profit Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and Gautam Adani’s Adani Group. Both these teams although don’t procure foodgrains from farmers. The farmers protests, now on few months, has sparked one other controversy between India’s non-public telcos- Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi). Jio has complained to the regulator that it was shedding subscribers due to “frivolous rumours” unfold by its rivals that the Mukesh Ambani-led firm will achieve from the farm payments. The Greater India Network