Sibal seeks telecom tower work under infra sector

“Tower sector should be treated by the Government of India as infrastructure. If you have four lakh towers in this country and you are at the cusp of setting many more...I don’t think industry itself can raise resources unless we treat it as infrastructure,” Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said on Friday here at a programme organised by the Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA).

The inclusion of the telecom tower installation work under infrastructure sector will encourage investors as it will help the companies in getting bank loans through much easier process.

During the programme TAIPA president Akhil Gupta complained that telecom tower companies were being looked at as “cash cows” by various authorities.

“No day passes when we do not receive some strange demand on annual fees, municipal tax or others. The fact is that today most members of this association, who run tower companies have negative returns on capital and those who have positive returns are only nominal ones,” Gupta said.

On this, Sibal assured TAIPA that he would call a meeting of tower companies and relevant ministers in state governments to sort out the issue of various charges imposed on towers.

Renewable energy

However, the minister did not take up the request that tower and infrastructure companies should not be compelled to use renewable energy sources.

“In the next Plan period target is going to be 1,00,000 MW power generation capacity and we hope to achieve that. In the absence of it we have no choice. May be the capex will be more but in the long run it [solar energy] will be greener and cheaper,” Sibal said.

The minister said he will initiate discussions with Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Renewable Energy and industry players to find a solution for reducing capital cost of solar panel.