Gati-Shakti Vision for Telecom Infrastructure – Right of Way Rules Amended for Faster 5G Roll-out

Source: The post is based on the article “Gati-Shakti Vision for Telecom Infrastructure – Right of Way Rules Amended for Faster 5G Roll-out” published in PIB on 25th August 2022.

What is the News?

The Department of Telecommunications has released the Indian Telegraph Right of Way (Amendment) Rules, 2022.

The amendments are expected to expedite the upgradation and expansion of the 5G telecom networks.

What are the key rules of the Indian Telegraph Right of Way (Amendment) Rules, 2022?

Telecom licensees can enter into an agreement with private property owners and will not require any permission from any government authority for installing telecom infrastructures such as towers, poles or optical fibre.

No administrative fee shall be charged by the Central government for the establishment of poles on land owned/controlled by it. For State/UTs, this fee will be limited to ₹1,000 per pole. The fee for laying overground optical fibre shall be limited to ₹1,000/ Km.

Telecom licensees will be able to use street infrastructure to deploy telecom equipment at a cost of ₹150/annum in rural areas and ₹300/annum in urban areas.

Telecom licensees shall not be required to pay compensation for land for the establishment of poles.

GatiShakti Sanchar portal will be the single window for getting all the Right of Way(RoW) clearances.

What is the significance of these rules?

The major challenges faced by the telecom sector were access to the existing infrastructure, deployment of new infrastructure and the high cost involved in it.

These rules will help in overcoming those challenges and will ensure the speedy roll-out of the technology and make the dream of 5G enabled India comes true.