Minister Vaishnav launched Gati Shakti Sanchar Portal, which will centralize and expedite approvals for laying fiber and tower installations, as the country prepares for the 5G roll-out.
Minister Vaishnav launched Gati Shakti Sanchar Portal, which will centralize and expedite approvals for laying fiber and tower installations, as the country prepares for the 5G roll-out.
Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on May 14 said that the legal backing for Right of Way (RoW) will be in place by December and launched Gatishakti Sanchar portal which will centralize and expedite approvals for laying fiber and tower installations, as the country goes for it. is ready. 5G roll-out,
Gatishakti Sanchar portal will facilitate Centralized Right of Way (RoW) approval. An online platform for industry to apply for RoW approval as they build telecom infrastructure including 5G services, Gati Shakti Sanchar Portal is an integrated platform covering all States and Union Territories and Central Government Ministries. Provides integrated, centralized approach.
For players, it promises the convenience of shortening the days involved, lower costs and ease of doing business in obtaining prescribed permissions.
Launching the portal, Shri Vaishnav emphasized the need for legal provisions for Right of Way and promised that a strong legal backing would be given by December this year. Currently, the ROW rules are based on administrative process and need a strong legal backing to empower local authorities, bring clarity on fee structure and fix accountability, he explained.
“This will be our next step. Also, all the portals, especially the Gati Shakti portal, railway portal, highway portal and others… Integration of those… We will work on these two technical and legal aspects,” Mr. Vaishnav said. he said.
Work on both these fronts has already started and the integration of portals is expected in the next 3-4 months, while the deadline for providing legal support is till the end of December. Asked whether there would also be a legal provision for RoW to penalize if the approval deadline is not met, the minister said, “Normally there is an accountability and a penalty attached…. otherwise, it is about approval, ” They said.
The new Gatishakti Sanchar portal is expected to significantly ease the process of ROW approval for laying infrastructure by the players and provide a centralized and integrated approach for permissions.
In addition, the integration of the portal with GIS will provide greater visibility into the optical fiber network and digital network to the state government and various agencies. Appreciating the State Governments for their proactive role in streamlining the processes, Shri Vaishnav said that the ROW approval time has already come down to 22 days from 100 days.
Once the technical and legal aspects are worked out, the cycle of 22 days may further reduce to a week.
“The portal will act as a enabler for the purpose of ‘ease of doing business’ for telecom infrastructure,” the minister said. “Timely settlement of RoW applications from various service and infrastructure providers will enable faster network creation, catalyzing the timely rollout of 5G,” the minister said.
The portal will enable applicants – telecom operators and infrastructure providers – to apply for write-of-way permission (for laying optical fiber cabling and installing mobile towers) to state governments and local bodies on a common single site.
For effective monitoring of ROW applications across the country, the portal is equipped with a dashboard which shows the state and district wise pending applications status. By simplifying the ROW approval process, the portal will boost optical fiber cabling, accelerate fiberization and increase tower density for connectivity, ensuring overall better broadband speed and quality of service. The portal is developed by MP State Electronics Development Corporation.
Industry body COAI lauded the initiative saying that with this portal, telecom service providers and infrastructure providers will be able to submit their applications and officials will be able to process and grant permissions in a timely manner for deployment of digital network infrastructure. Will be
The vision of this portal is to provide a collaborative institutional mechanism between all stakeholders including Central and State Governments, Central Land Ownership Authorities (Railways, Defence, Ports and others), local bodies and service providers to facilitate permissions for ROW applications and deployment. can be made. of digital infrastructure in the country
SP Kochhar, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) termed the new portal as a “milestone” that will enable the vision for ‘Digital India’.
Presently, the application process for setting up of digital infrastructure is getting delayed due to inconsistency and uncertainty of policy and procedures adopted at various levels. Therefore, there is a need to expedite the application process to overcome the challenges of implementation of Right of Way Rules-2016.
TR Dua, Director General, Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA), said, “The launch of this portal is a game changer and another milestone for the telecom industry, addressing the rapid rollout and earlier delays of digital infrastructure across the country. with less”.