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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Sept. 1

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday said cellular operators in Delhi have not set up adequate infrastructure to accommodate the growing subscriber base thereby resulting in poor coverage, call drops and heavy congestion.

In a study conducted by the telecom regulator across the NDMC areas and the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ), it has found that there is shortage of nearly 200 cell sites.

While in Lutyen Delhi there is a shortage of 135, there is a requirement of 53 additional cell sites in the NDMC area. The cellular mobile service in Delhi has been experiencing tremendous growth in the last five years from 5.56 lakh users in March 2001 to 55.54 lakh by March 2005.

" Commensurate with this exponential growth in the subscriber base in Delhi, the service providers have not been able to put the requisite cell sites in the LBZ and NDMC areas. It is estimated that 15 lakh people come for work or other-wise move through this zone each day. Inadequate number of cell sites has resulted in poor coverage, call drops, heavy congestion over a period of time," TRAI said.

The service providers said they are facing problems in getting approval for setting up the cell sites from civic authorities due to multiplicity of authorities. The operators had been taking up this issue with the NDMC, Delhi Urban Arts Commission and the Delhi Government since long.

In mid 2002, the Lt. Governor of Delhi convened a meeting of representatives of mobile operators, NDMC, MCD and DoT to address the concerns of the authorities and operators and a decision was taken regarding structural safety and stability of the buildings, sharing of towers, towers on unauthorised buildings, disclosure of agreements with the owners to MCD and NDMC.

The NDMC had in October, 2004 issued guidelines for setting up cell sites. The operators had expressed concerns about these guidelines, especially regarding the fees. It has also been reported by some of the operators that they have received eviction notes from the NDMC for removal of existing sites in the LBZ and NDMC areas. Any such removal of the existing sites would further aggravate the problem.

The operators are also facing shortage of spectrum due to delay in allocating additional spectrum. Most of the service providers in Delhi have already crossed the benchmark for allocation of additional spectrum. TRAI said the concerns raised by the operators were being taken up with the concerned authorities.

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