Industry associations COAI and ASSOCHAM have welcomed new uniform Right of Way (RoW) rules by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). DoT’s new uniform Right of Way (RoW) rules will be applicable across the entire country. India has more than 900 million mobile customers. The new RoW guidelines will simplify and streamline the process of RoW approvals, resulting in better connectivity, enhanced speeds, more coverage and reduction in call drops for consumers.
Manoj Sinha, minister for Communications and JS Deepak, secretary of Telecom, were instrumental in announcing the RoW guidelines. The Indian telecom industry is expecting that RoW rules will simplify the process of site acquisition for installation of mobile towers and expedite the provision of mobile infrastructure. The rules will streamline the process of clearances for setting up mobile towers by making provisions for single-window clearance through a nodal officer in states. Receiving licenses for laying optical fiber cables will become easy.