Punjab to carry out census of telecom towers

For drafting a state-level Telecom Towers Regulatory Policy, the Punjab Information Technology Department will carry out a comprehensive census of all existing telecommunication towers in the state in the next one month. This was decided at a meeting chaired by Information Technology Minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon.

A state-level census of existing telecom towers has been ordered because at present, none of the five or six departments receiving applications related to erection of such towers have complete statistics about the number of such towers that have cropped up all over the state.

Kairon also emphasised the need for multiple usage of telecom towers so that every telecom company did not set up its own towers to cover the same area and generate unnecessary congestion, noise and vibrations arising out of the accompanying generators.

For that purpose, a study group has been constituted under Principal Secretary Information Technology Sarvesh Kaushal to explore as to how many telecom towers are required to cover the entire geographical area of the state and the minimum optimum number of nodal telecom towers which should be jointly used by all telecom service providers.

The state policy would include comprehensive guidelines for setting up telecom towers.