Right-of-way terms diluted for telecom firms

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has altered some of the crucial conditions prescribed for granting right-of-way (RoW) for laying optical fibre cable, allegedly to favour the major telecom companies which have failed to meet the terms.

The conditions included providing internet connectivity to all government and aided schools along the way the cables are laid and setting up of internet information kiosks across the state for public to access. Now  alternative options have been incorporated into these conditions through an order issued by IT principal secretary P.H. Kurien the other day.

IT department officials maintained that there were practical difficulties in implementing some of the earlier conditions owing to lack of clarity on factors like the number of schools to be provided internet connection and speed of the connectivity. Moreover, the new conditions offered better connectivity, an official said.

Telecom giants like Reliance Communication,  Reliance  Jio Infocomm, Idea Vodafone, Tata and Airtel are among those who have obtained RoW in the state. They had deposited about Rs 20 crore as security deposit.

Sources alleged that the government relaxed the conditions succumbing to pressure from the telecom giants. “Many government and aided schools and households still do not have internet connection. Hence there was no justification in diluting the condition for providing free internet connection to schools and setting up of kiosks,” said a government official.

Kerala State IT Mission director Mohammed Y. Safirrullah told DC that some of the terms, including providing connectivity up to block level,  involved practical difficulties.

Since no time limit to meet the conditions was prescribed,   stern measures like holding back the security deposits could not be taken. 

Hence the government had now decided to alter the conditions which would  benefit the state. According to the order, if providing connectivity to schools and setting up of kiosks were impractical, the service provider may provide 10 mbps connectivity to district headquarters. Instead of providing connectivity till block level, connectivity from district level to state data centre with four times higher bandwidth will have to be provided.

“The uptime (a measure of reliability or stability) prescribed for this connectivity is only 98.5 which is also not desirable,” an IT expert in government sector said. Various other alterations were also made  and the IT Mission is initiating discussions with service providers on the basis of the new set of conditions.