TAIPA writes to Power Ministry for uninterrupted electricity supply for telecom towers amid lockdown

Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) has approached the government for support in ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply and priority connections for telecom towers across the country during the lockdown, imposed to fight the spread of coronavirus.

TAIPA has urged Power Ministry to advise all state governments and state electricity companies across the country to ensure availability of uninterrupted electricity supply for telecom tower operations.

Also, all state electricity distribution companies should give electricity connections on 'priority' for telecom tower sites in view of present situation, to make them operational for telecom services.

TAIPA, whose members include all key players in the telecom infrastructure space like Indus Towers Limited, ATC Group Companies, Bharti Infratel, GTL Infrastructure, Reliance Infratel, Tower Vision, Sterlite Technologies and Space Teleinfra, has also urged that penalty should not be charged on account of any delay in EB (Electricity Board) bill payment of telecom towers since bill receiving/ collection and payment is impacted due to lockdown.

In a letter to Power Secretary Sanjiv Nandan Sahai, TAIPA said, "While the necessary support has been extended by the various State Electricity Distribution companies so far, we would further like to seek your support in ensuring uninterrupted EB supply for telecom towers, which is critical for continued operations of telecom services".

Telecom is classified as critical service during the present lockdown, and businesses are relying heavily on work-from-home in the current circumstances, it said, adding that connectivity is the underlying backbone for various other services such as e-commerce, banking and finance, e-governance, e-education, healthcare, among others.

It has said that telecom infrastructure providers should also be granted at least 45 days of grace period for EB bill payments.

"In case of EB failure on telecom tower sites, restoration of EB to be ensured on priority and on an immediate basis since back-ups like battery may take time due to movement restrictions," TAIPA said.