The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) plans to facilitate subsidies, grants and overseas borrowings through multilateral agencies to help debt-ridden tower companies to invest in green energy technologies mandated by the government.
An internal note floated by DoT states that the department is in the process of identifying financing alternatives, including external commercial borrowings from World Bank and Asian Development Bank in addition to subsidies from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the National Clean Energy Fund.
DoT is focusing on ensuring that tower companies have easy access to bank financing through softer interest rates and longer loan tenures since tower industry has been awarded infrastructure status. Further, telecom tower companies will also be eligible for higher overseas borrowing limits.
