Telcos fret over hike in tower installation costs in Delhi

Consumers in Delhi may quickly face huge disruptions in cellular broadband protection with the processing of functions for organising new telecom towers nearly coming to a grinding halt after telcos and tower firms have objected to the latest 150% leap in tower set up expenses.

Mobile tower set up charges, just lately revised by two Delhi municipalities, have risen sharply from round Rs 2 lakh per tower for a 5-year span to Rs 5 lakh per tower for a 5-year interval, a senior trade government conscious of the matter instructed ET.

Each software for organising new cellular towers within the nationwide capital can even appeal to an extra one-time levy of Rs 10,000 in the direction of administrative bills. Further, such set up expenses will rise by one other 25% if a tower is shared between a number of telecom carriers.

Both North and South Delhi municipal companies, have in separate circulars, dated January 21 and January 5 respectively, mentioned “the revised installation charges for cell towers/poles would be Rs 10,000 per month or Rs 1 lakh per annum,” including that in case of tower-sharing between telcos, an “further 25% could be relevant“ per occasion of such sharing. ET has seen these circulars.

Problems have gotten aggravated as one of many native municipality on-line portals that accepts functions for brand new tower installations in Delhi is just not functioning often resulting from technical snags. As a outcome, even older functions for organising cellular towers that have been filed final November 2020 may now appeal to greater set up expenses which can be efficient from January 5 and January 21 within the SDMC and NDMC jurisdictions respectively.

Telcos and tower firms have sought the Department of Telecommunications’ rapid intervention.

“We have recently apprised telecom secretary Anshu Prakash about the surprise decisions of two local Delhi municipalities to unilaterally increase the cell tower installation charges without discussing the matter with the operators and tower firms,” mentioned one other trade government. He added that “a failure to resolve the matter quickly” may set off disruptions in cellular protection within the capital.

Matters have come to a head as each Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio proceed to develop their 4G consumer base in key markets like Delhi, particularly as sturdy cellular information consumption continues to stay sturdy amid the persevering with pandemic with huge swathes of India Inc nonetheless working from house.

ET’s queries to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi), didn’t instantly elicit a response. Queries to the Tower & Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) additionally remained unanswered. The TAIPA represents Indus Towers, ATC, Summit Digitel, Ascend Telecom and Tower Vision amongst others. The Greater India