Telecom service providers expressed concern over disruption of optical fibre cable due to ongoing all-weather road project and consequent widening of roads.
The State Government will be asked to communicate with the Central government to incorporate permanent ducts along the road as part of the project to enable uninterrupted service of the optical cables. This and other issues were raised in the first meeting of the State Disaster Coordination Committee (SDCC), Uttarakhand and West Uttar Pradesh with telecom service providers and other officials concerned.
According to the Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre (DMMC) executive director Piyoosh Rautela, the Department of Telecommunications (Ministry of Communication) DDG Manoj Pant presided over the meeting held here on Thursday. Most of the telecom service providers in the meeting expressed concern over disruption of optical fibre cable due to ongoing work on the all-weather road project and road widening. They suggested that as is done elsewhere, permanent ducts should be constructed along the road for laying of cables of various telecom service providers. This would help prevent disruption of the cable network and could also prove to be a source of revenue for the government from the telecom service providers in the future. It was suggested that the state government write to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for incorporating the task of constructing permanent ducts along the roads and augment the budgetary provision as required under the all-weather road project. Apart from this issue, the officials and telecom service providers also discussed functioning of the disaster management toll free numbers (1070 and 1077). To ensure priority routing service during disaster incidences, it was stated that the numbers of key disaster management officials would be provided to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNl) and Department of Telecommunications.
Other issues including holding of special mock drills for various telecom service providers, training of state officials, particularly of police, in routine maintenance of Base Transceiver Station (BTS) towers, storage of fuel for continuous operation of BTS in far flung areas, priority allocation of fuel to various telecom service providers during disaster incidences and priority transportation of equipment/ portable BTS of telecom service providers during disaster incidences were also discussed. A common alert service being planned by the Department of Telecommunications and mobile BTS availability with various telecom service providers were also deliberated upon in the meeting.