Legal support for RoW by December, says Telecom minister
New Delhi:
Telecoms minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday that legal support for Right of Way (RoW) will be in December, and launched the GatiShakti Sanchar portal that will centralize and accelerate approvals for laying fiber and tower installations as the country prepares for 5G rollout.
The GatiShakti Sanchar portal will enable centralized Right of Way (RoW) approvals.
The GatiShakti Sanchar portal, an online platform for the industry to apply for RoW approvals in building telecom infrastructure, including for 5G services, provides a unified, integrated, centralized approach for all states and UTs, and the ministries of the central government.
For players, it promises to reduce the days it takes to obtain certain permissions, cut costs, and make doing business easier.
Vaishnaw launched the portal, asserting the need for legal provisions for Right of Way, and promising that strong legal support will be put in place by December this year. At present, RoW rules are based on an administrative process, and strong legal support is needed to empower local officials, clarify the fee structure and establish accountability, he explained.
“That will be our next step. In addition, all the portals out there, especially Gati Shakti portal, railway portal, highway portal and others… integration of those… We will work on these two technological and legal aspects,” Vaishnaw said.
Work on these two fronts has already begun and portal integration is expected in the next 3-4 months, while timelines for providing legal support are at the end of December.
When asked whether legal provisions for RoW also entail sanctions if the approval deadlines are not met, the minister said that liability and fines are generally linked.
“…otherwise it’s about presumed approval,” he said.
The new GatiShakti Sanchar portal is expected to greatly facilitate the process of RoW approvals for infrastructure deposits by players, providing a centralized and unified approach to permissions.
Furthermore, the integration of the portal with GIS will give the state government and various agencies more insight into the fiber optic network and the digital networks that are present. The RoW approval time has already dropped from 100 days to 22 days, Vaishnaw said, praising state governments for their proactive role in streamlining processes.
Once work is done on both the technological and legal aspects, the 22-day cycle can be further reduced to even a week in the future.
The portal will act as an enabler for the ‘ease of doing business’ objective for the telecommunications infrastructure, the minister said. The timely removal of RoW applications from various service and infrastructure providers will enable rapid network creation, which will catalyze the timely rollout of 5G, the minister said.
The portal enables applicants – telecom operators and infrastructure providers – to apply for priority rights (for laying fiber optic cable and installing mobile towers) from state governments and local agencies in a common single site.
For effective monitoring of RoW applications across the country, the portal is equipped with a dashboard that displays the state and district status of applications.
By facilitating the RoW approval process, the portal will galvanize fiber optic cable laying, accelerate fiberization and increase tower density for connectivity, which will overall improve broadband speed and quality of service.
The portal is developed by MP State Electronics Development Corporation.
Trade association COAI praised the initiative by saying that telecom service providers and infrastructure providers can submit their applications with this portal and that the authorities can process the deployment of digital network infrastructure and give permission in a timely manner.
The vision for this portal is to provide an institutional collaboration mechanism between all stakeholders including central and state governments, central landowners (railways, defense, ports and others), local agencies and service providers to implement the RoW applications and authorizations for the rollout. of digital infrastructure in the country.
SP Kochhar, Director General of the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), called the new portal a “milestone” that will enable the vision for “Digital India”.
Currently, the application process for the installation of digital infrastructure is delayed due to inconsistency and uncertainty of policies and processes that are established at different levels. Thus, there is a need for an accelerated application process to overcome the challenges of Right of Way Rules-2016 implementation.
Director General of the Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA), TR Dua, said: “The launch of this portal is a game changer and another milestone for the telecom industry, accelerating the rollout of digital infrastructure across the country and reducing of previous delays”.
