Ministry eases rules to speed up laying of fibre optic cables

To speed up the laying of telecom and optical fibre cables, the transport ministry has relaxed provisions related to clearances required from the Highway Administration. It has now been decided to dispense with the need for mentioning various safety clearances, and the application shall only mention details regarding license from telecom authorities. Prior to this, the applicant had to mention details of various safety clearances from authorities such as Directorate of Electricity, Chief Controller of Explosives, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, Oil Industry Safety Directorate, and State/Central Pollution Control Board, among others. The need for putting applications in the public domain and seeking claims and objections on grounds of public inconvenience while laying underground optical fibre and telecom cables within the Right of Way (RoW) area of National highways is also being done away with. “Applications for optical fibre or telecom cables need to be processed expeditiously and approval must be given within 30 days,” the Transport Ministry order said. It was earlier specified that an approval shall be deemed to be granted if there are no objections and claims to the proposed cables. See also: STL to build Indian telco’s optical network for 5G Delhi govt to set up sustainable mobility centre with IIIT Delhi