Not only commuting, but mobile phone calls are also set be expensive with the increase in diesel price by Rs 5. The hike in the diesel price by the government is going to increase the operating cost of the telecom firms as most of the towers in the country runs on diesel-guzzling generator sets.
According to preliminary analysis, the telecom tower industry consumes two billion litres of diesel per annum, which 3.5 per cent of India’s total diesel consumption. It is expected to reach 3.5 billion litres per annum by 2020.
“The operating costs of the telecom firms would go up considerably. On an average telcos pay 30 per cent of their general expenses on towers. The industry is in no financial position to absorb the additional cost and they will have to increase the tariffs in the short-term,” COAI director general Rajan Mathews said.
However, the industry has already started to look at alternate sources of energy, so in the long term the dependence on diesel would reduce considerably, he added.
In India, a large number of telecom towers are located in rural/semi-urban areas with limited or no grid connectivity and have to depend on diesel gensets for meeting their power requirement.
As a part of its green telecom drive, telecom regulator Trai had directed tower companies to reduce their dependence on diesel and cut carbon emissions by running at least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 20 per cent of the urban towers on hybrid power by 2015.
Telecom tower providers for long had been looking at reducing operational costs by reducing dependence on diesel.
Taipa, the industry association representing tower infrastructure providers across the country, is already working on a initiative that will help save the cost of diesel for running towers especially in areas where grid electricity is not available.
The industry body had proposed the creation of renewable energy service providing companies or Rescos that will set up independent plants to sell power (green power) to tower companies or telcos.