Home Min wants DoT to install 4000 towers in naxal-hit area

The Home Affairs Ministry has asked the Department of Telecom to install 4,072 additional mobile towers in naxal-hit areas on priority basis, official sources said.
"Home Ministry has asked DoT provisioning of 4,072 mobile towers in LWE (Left Wing Extremist) affected areas on priority basis," a telecom ministry official told PTI.
The DoT has already installed around 2,200 mobile towers in nine naxal-hit states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh through BSNL under the first phase.
BSNL received bids from only two domestic telecom gear makers- Vihaan Networks Limited and Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited for the project. Both the vendors jointly installed 2,199 solar powered mobile towers in the naxal affected areas four months before the deadline of December 2016.

The proposal to install additional mobile towers was placed before the Telecom Commission, the highest decision making body at the DoT, in its meeting held on December 21.
According to industry sources, the telecom commission has approved the project. However, the same could not be confirmed officially.