The lack of clarity on rentals for different types of telecom infrastructure is delaying the public internet service.
The civic body has not fixed rentals for smaller telecom equipment called access points. All that the BBMP<\/a> needs to do is to hold just one meeting, and all hurdles will go, said a senior government<\/a> official.
When Priyank Kharge<\/a> was IT\/BT Minister, the government<\/a> had approved 140 towers for Bengaluru, and the BBMP was approached for permission at 69 spots.
The BBMP permitted towers at 60 places ahead of the Assembly polls. The BBMP has fixed a rental of Rs 75,000 per tower per year for regular towers. Many service providers prefer smaller equipment to overcome site availability and right-of-way issues. Even Chief Secretary Ratna Prabha chaired a meeting on the subject, but things have not moved at BBMP.
“Everything from partners to locations are identified, and 90% of the work is over. Only the BBMP clearance is awaited. There are some hurdles at the BBMP level. If these are overcome, it can be operationalised in about a month,” said Kharge, who holds Social Welfare portfolio.
Honeycomb and D-VoiS offered to install hotspots at 2555 locations each in Benglauru, Mysuru and Kalaburgi, while ACT expressed interest to build wifi<\/a> hotspots at 1000 spots in Bengaluru and Mysuru. Indus Towers had proposed a total of 173 locations which included 140 locations of Bengaluru.
“We have so far erected a total of 6 sites. Four in Bangalore (2 each of 12m & 30m) and two in Gulbarga (1 each of 12m & 30m),” said Subbu Iyer, Karnataka CEO of Indus Towers. “The process of clearance had been stopped tentatively due to elections, but now we hope to take this further and look forward to partner with the State Government in its other future endeavours.”
What is critical for service providers is BBMP clearance at site level. The BBMP local engineer has to inspect the site and allow the installation. The civic body has cleared 16 such sites.
M.Mahadev, Chairman of Tax and Finance Standing Committee at BBMP, when contacted said he was not aware of the issues the public wifi<\/a> project is confronted with. He will discuss with his team of officials, and try to resolve it soon, he said.
According to government’s plans, members of public will get to use the public wifi<\/a> free for the first 30 minutes. They will have to pay the commercial rates, as fixed by the TRAI, for using the service beyond the free minutes.
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