Digital India: Centre's new law to rationalise Right of Way procedures for laying telecom infrastructure

NEW DELHI: Aiming at ensuring a smooth nationwide roll out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘Digital India’ mission, the Centre could soon bring in legislation backed guiding principles to rationalise Right of Way procedures and charges for laying of telecom infrastructure — currently varying widely across states. RoW charges vary from a few lakhs to Rs 1.5 crore per km across the municipal bodies in the country.

Top government sources confirmed to ET that the Attorney General of India has given the go ahead to the Telecom Department for framing of rules under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 to prescribe principles for granting Right of Way by state governments and local bodies and for levy of charges for the establishment of telecom infrastructure.

While Section 7 of the Indian Telegraph Act does provide for the Center to “make rules consistent with this Act for the conduct of all or any telegraph, established, maintained or worked by the government or by persons licensed” by it—no such rules have been notified on RoW by the Centre till date. The Centre has, however, issued advisories to state governments to facilitate rational imposition of charges and delineate procedures.

The last such advisory was issued by the telecom department in April 2013 but procedures still remain as onerous as ever at state level. Since this is a sensitive area involving State-Centre jurisdiction, the telecom department has been treading cautiously and accordingly sought AG’s opinion on the same.




Problems have arisen as some states charge rather exorbitantly for laying of fibres and even impose taxing preconditions that telecom service providers often find difficult to meet.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh are even said to demand free bandwidth for government institutions as a condition for grants of RoW permissions for laying optical fibre.

Gujarat and Kerala levy annual rental charges in addition to one time charges for fibre infrastructure laid by telecom service providers carried below public streets. The Mumbai municipal authority is said to earn near Rs 2,000 crore per annum just through RoW charges. The RoW charges are also quite high in some parts of Delhi.

These are now particularly coming in the way of Digital India initiative to bridge the digital divide. A need is also felt for different set of principles for levy of charge for underground and over ground cables as the latter restricts usage of land under the telecom tower infrastructure.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed to ET that all efforts were being made to streamline RoW procedures for larger national interest.

“Yes, the Department has taken this up and we will now take a call accordingly. We have no quarrel with municipal bodies earning revenue but on certain issues of national interest, things must be facilitated. When you charge exorbitant rates, it does not help. We have been discussing the issue with states and most of them have responded quite favorably. It has to be understood by all that Right of Way issues are integral to the digitalization of India and must be opened up for laying of fibers,” Prasad told ET.

The Ravi Shankar Prasad led department of telecom had recently sought the opinion of the Attorney General of India asking whether the Central government was competent to enact a legislation to prescribe principles for ROW to states, whether such rules could be brought in through powers available under sections 7(1) AND Section 7(2)(e) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and whether the proposed legislation can set out principles for charges of reinstatements, timelines and procedures for granting RoW permission by state governments and local bodies.

Top officials who did not wish to be identified, confirmed that the AG has opined in the affirmative, paving way for the Telecom department to frame such rules.

While the Indian Telegraph Act Section 4 grants exclusive privilege to the Centre for establishing, maintaining and working telegraphs and communication facilities, Section 12 of the Act provides for reasonable conditions that local authorities can impose while granting Right of Way permissions. These could include charges to payment of expenses which the local authorizes may be put through due to the infrastructure building. In the earlier days of state monopolised telecom services, this was rather uncomplicated withy the BSNL paying only basic charges accrued due to digging up.

Things changes considerably with private players stepping in and state government’s raising RoW costs and also bringing in preconditions for permissions.

An expert committee on National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) that recently submitted its review report to the telecom ministry had also said that on RoW, a lump sum payment must be made upfront to agencies such as the National Highways Authority of India, oil companies etc, so the balance can be adjusted as approvals come through. It has also suggested that state governments sign agreements with the agencies to formulate a common procedure for RoW approvals.