Punjab to regularise all telecom towers

Chandigarh, April 28 (IANS) To strengthen the telecommunication infrastructure in the state as part of its focus on e-governance and e-commerce, the Punjab government has decided to regularise all telecom towers installed unauthorisedly between December 5, 2013, and December 7, 2020.The decision was taken at Wednesday's virtual cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.The cabinet decided to extend the scope of provisions in Section 2.0 (I) (a) of the Telecom Guidelines issued on December 7, 2020, for this purpose.According to a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office, the regularisation would be subject to the fulfilment of conditions along with one-time payment of Rs 20,000. The scheme is open for six months.The state telecom guidelines are aligned to the Right of Way Rules of 2016 issued by the Centre under the Indian Telegraph Act of 1985 on November 15, 2016.The Centre had asked all the states and Union Territories to align their respective telecom policies and guidelines with these rules.
--IANS vg/vd