Assam becomes the 4th State in the Country to issue the Right of Way Guidelines (RoW), which was approved by the Cabinet in its last meeting on January 28.
The telecom operators and the industry associations have hailed the passing of the RoW guidelines and thank the efforts of the IT department.
This was informed in meeting which was held by the Assam Chief Secretary V K Pipersenia,IAS with the Telecom Service Providers, Tower Service Providers and other stakeholders on February 12 last to review the current mobile and internet connectivity status and improvement of the same in the State.
The meeting was attended by the Addl. CS, IT, Secretary, IT, Head, SeMT and representatives of concerned stake holders.
The new guidelines will regulate the establishment of underground and over-ground telecom infrastructure and also facilitate establishing telegraph infrastructure on Government buildings/premises.
The process of the application disposal will be completed within a fixed time period subject to deposit of fees, required documentation by the Telecom operators.
The entire process will be made online within a period of one year for which IT Department will constitute a team to study the process for development of the application along with the Telecom operators and other stakeholder departments. All operators will have to mandatorily register in the ease of doing business portal of the State Government.
Regarding allotment of the Government premises the application will be considered in the first cum first serve basis.
However, sharing of the mobile towers will be encouraged for the healthy growth of the industry in the State.
The Chief Secretary requested cooperation from the Operators for establishment of the Telecom Towers in the uncovered area of the State and upgrade the existing base stations to 3G/4G level.