Smart poles: HC seeks NDMC, Reliance replies Indus plea

Delhi High Court today sought the response of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Reliance Jio Infocomm on a plea by a mobile tower firm seeking direction to the civic body not to grant authorisation for providing Wi-Fi services through street poles to anyone without informing the court or issuing a tender.
Justice V P Vaish issued notices to NDMC and Reliance Jio and sought their replies on the petition of Indus Towers which also sought records of authorisations provided by the civic body till date.
The court directed NDMC to ensure the presence of its official in court with relevant records on the next date of hearing on November 4.

Indus, represented by senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, told the court that NDMC had last year given authorisation to Reliance to provide seamless Wi-Fi through 750 streetlight poles.
Thereafter, NDMC had floated a tender to award contract to provide such services along with LED lights and cameras on the poles, in which Indus emerged as the successful bidder in February 2015, Nayar said.
A letter of intent (LoI) was issued to Indus on March 18. However, but when Reliance challenged the tender in the High Court, NDMC decided to scrap it, he said.

Indus moved the petition seeking not only the records of past authorisations, but also their cancellation, and a direction to NDMC not to issue fresh ones without a tender or without the leave of the court.

NDMC opposed the plea saying the petition was "confused" and "not maintainable", with its counsel saying the earlier authorisations for 750 poles were issued as a pilot project to see if Wi-Fi can be provided seamlessly through the poles.
The counsel said towards this end, expression of interest was invited from all telecom companies. Besides Reliance Jio, Vodafone, a group company of Indus Towers, had also participated and some authorisations were granted to it too.
After the tender was floated last year, the pilot project was stopped, the counsel told the court.
On August 21, NDMC had said it had decided to re-float the tender to provide free Wi-Fi and set up CCTVs on 18,500 street poles in areas under the civic body's jurisdiction.