4365 towers at J&K are illegal!

4365 out of 6500  Towers illegal in J&K !
Jammu Kasmir Power department to impose fine of Rupees 20,800 per site per month. 
Total penalty to be paid is estimated as Rupees 250 crores.

The towers have several other discrepancies violating the terms and conditions.


"Thesiya Murasu": -- What if? Everything will be condoned. Our administrators will say the customers interest has to be safeguarded and hence the illegal towers will be allowed to do legal business. These telcos will appeal against the penalties and they will be accepted
  To read further click "Read more" below

Service providers in Jammu and Kashmir may land in trouble since of the 6,500 telecom towers operational in the state, the J&K government has only sanctioned power availability certificates, which is a necessary step for commissioning the towers, to 2,135 towers.
A senior official in the department said, “Lot of irregularities have happened in the past for erecting towers in Jammu and Kashmir.”
As per the documents in possession of Telecom Yatra, the development commissioner of power, J&K, had written to all the service providers in May 2010 that power availability certificates have been issued to only 2,135 towers in J&K and that the remaining towers have flouted the rules for erecting telecom towers.
According to sources, the power department plans to impose a penalty of Rs 20,800 per site per month on service providers who have not adhered to the rules.
Our source further said that telecom operators in Jammu and Kashmir are estimated to pay Rs 250 crore in penalties.
The documents also state that the base transceiver station (BTS) of telcos has other discrepancies which need immediate correction for them to be legal.
These discrepancies are regarding material used in the BTS sites, which are not ISI marked. Further, DG metering has not been provided, infrastructure has been shared in violation of the Electricity Act of J&K, and a number of installations are running without obtaining no objection certificates from different government departments. These certificates are needed for getting towers regularised.
In Jammu and Kashmir, tower sharing among telcos is not allowed, which means a single tower can be used by only one service provider.
It may be recalled that in April 2007 passive infrastructure sharing among telcos was allowed by DoT. This enabled service providers to share physical space, and the tower, as well as backup generators, batteries etc.
On June 25, 2010 a meeting was conveyed by the principal secretary of the power development department (PDD) of J&K during which it was decided that service providers will be asked to furnish the memorandum of understanding regarding how the tower will be shared; together with a copy of the order issued by the Department of Telecom for allowing infrastructure to be shared so that suitable amendments to the J&K Electricity Act can be proposed.
In the same meeting, chief engineers of the PDD were directed to ensure that service providers put in place the metering equipment before July and that if they do not comply, action should be taken against them.
In 2009, the Power Development Department of J&K had issued power availability certificates to 400 sites of Reliance Infratel, 137 sites of Aircel, 697 sites of Vodafone, 536 sites of Bharti infratel, 110 sites of BSNL, 109 sites of wireless TT infoservices and 146 sites of GTL.