Days after Naxals ambushed and killed 15 security personnel, a meeting of the Telecom Commission is being convened to decide on installing mobile towers in the violence affected areas.
The Department of Telecom is looking for a date in next week from inter-ministerial officials for convening the meeting of Telecom Commission to discuss revised estimate of the installing mobile tower across nine states affected by Naxal violence.
"Next week...But it is not finalised yet," DoT Secretary MF Farooqui said today when asked about status of Telecom Commission meeting.
The project was to be completed by June but is stuck due to an arithmetical error and omission of certain items like revision in VSAT charges etc for rolling out network which needs about Rs 789 crore additional fund over Rs 3,046 crore approved by Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs.
In a brazen daytime attack, Naxals on March 11 ambushed a security team killing 15 personnel including 11 of the CRPF and also a civilian in a chilling reminder of the 2010 massacre of 76 securitymen in the same area in the worst-hit Sukma district of Chhattisgarh.
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had condemned attack and said: "I have asked DoT to expedite the process (of installing mobile tower)."
The project was approved in June 2013 soon after a Maoist attack at Bastar in Chattisgarh in which 27 people, including senior Congress leaders, were killed.
Telecom Commission has to take a call on it and due to higher revised estimates and inclusion of certain items, the project may have to be again placed before Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, sources said.
State-owned BSNL was asked to set up towers at 2,199 locations in the nine states in next 12 months.
The nine states are Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
The towers which have been a long-pending demand of the Home Ministry, will strengthen the telecom network resulting in increase communication facility in left wing extremist LWE affected areas and other areas facing security challenges.
BSNL has till date installed towers at 363 locations.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked DoT to get the project completed by BSNL within a year and said that in the first phase towers should be installed in proximity with security force establishments.
