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The Tower & Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) has sought an immediate clearance of “huge dues” owed by State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to its members.
The dues were incurred for providing infrastructure services by TAIPA’s Infrastructure Provider-1 (IP-1) to BSNL for maintaining 24X7 operations, the association said in a letter.
“I once again request your urgent intervention and support regarding clearance of outstanding dues of our IP–1 members due to which our members are facing huge cash crunch, which is leading to following challenges with regard to ensuring 24X7 telecom operations on telecom tower sites of BSNL in view of present situation due to COVID-19,” the letter, written by TAIPA Director General T R Dua said.
The letter dated April 28 was addressed to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P. K. Purwar, with copies to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash and BSNL Director (Finance) S K Gupta.
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This has resulted in default in payment of rentals to the landlords where BSNL sites are installed, it said, adding they have been demanding payment and threatening with coercive action.
TAIPA members are also facing difficulty in payment of electricity bills of BSNL tower sites, challenges in Operation & Maintenance (O&M) expenses, while procurement of diesel, batteries and other back up storage devices for telecom towers sites of BSNL is impacted.
There are also challenges in keeping the uptime as per Service-level agreement for BSNL tower sites, which is leading to network outage and blackouts, it added.
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TAIPA members include Indus Towers, ATC Telecom Infrastructure, Bharti Infratel and Tower Vision, while Sterlite Technologies, Space Telelink, Applied Solar Technologies and Coslight India are its associate members.
In April, TAIPA had sought the Department of Telecommunications’ intervention in clearing the dues of about Rs 1,500 crore owed by BSNL.
READ THE STORY: TAIPA seeks DoT intervention to clear Rs 1,500 crore from BSNL
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