At a time when night curfews and limited lockdowns are being enforced to check the spread of Covid-19, the telecom industry has requested the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for issuing instructions to the state governments concerned to allow the movement of telecom staff and issue priority passes to them.
In response to the curfew in Delhi, industry body COAI has written to DoT that local police authorities are not allowing any movement of vehicles and personnel of telecom service providers, internet service providers, infrastructure providers, their partners and optical fibre maintenance entities during the lockdown time.
“…we request DoT headquarters and the LSA control rooms to monitor these developments closely and issue instructions to the concerned state governments to issue priority passes to and allow the movement of representatives/staff of TSPs, ISPs…so that the network roll out and its repair and maintenance work can be carried out to ensure the essential services of telecom connectivity at this critical juncture is kept operational 24×7 in such notified areas of a complete movement restriction,” COAI said.
Telecom is recognised as an “essential service” in various government orders and, to enable this service to run on a 24×7 basis, the staff of these TSPs, ISPs, infrastructure providers and their partners should be allowed to access the telecom sites/work places. Otherwise, the same will result in complete breakdown in service.
“Also, the government is putting stress on the lesser movement of people, therefore, the provision of quality and uninterrupted communication network is imperative both for public as well as for the administration,” the letter added. As the cases of Covid surge across the country, various state governments have announced weekend curfews and limited lockdowns.