TAIPA urges BSNL to clear outstanding dues of telecom infrastructure providers

Industry body TAIPA on Wednesday said it has urged BSNL to clear "huge"outstanding dues of infrastructure providers, in order tomaintain continuity of telecom operations at state-owned operator's tower sites, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

TheTower And Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) hasalso urged Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash foran urgent intervention to get these outstanding dues cleared.

"TAIPA...body of Telecom Infrastructure Providers Category I (IP-1)...has written to PK Purwar, Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL requesting for clearing huge outstanding dues of its IP-1 members for maintaining 24X7 continuity of telecom operations at BSNL tower sites...," the association said in a statement.

TAIPA rued that its members are facing huge cash crunch which is leading to multiple challenges in ensuring smoothoperations on telecom tower sites of BSNL in the backdrop of coronavirus pandemic.

These problems pertain to difficultyin payment of rentals to landlords, challenges in operationand maintenance (O&M) expenses for running of BSNL tower sites, and impact on procurement ofdiesel/batteries and other back-up storage devices for telecom towers sites of the telecom PSU.

"Landlords (of the lands )where BSNL sites are installed have been demanding the payment of rentals and threatening coercive action," TAIPA said.

Other challenges include maintainingthe uptime as per service agreement for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) tower sites, which is leading to network outage and blackouts in nearby areas of the sites.

Elaborating on the issue,TR Dua, Director-General, TAIPA said, We haveonce again requested...Chairman & MD, BSNL for an urgent intervention for clearing the full outstanding dues of our IP-1 members at the earliest which will support in resolution of...issues to ensure uninterrupted telecom operations and network connectivity of BSNL tower sites across the country..."