Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has urged Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to write to chief secretaries/ administrators of states/UTs, to allow movement of telecom staff for continuous telecom connectivity.
To this end, COAI has written a letter and urged the secretary, DoT staff/personnel/field engineers of TSPs, ISPs, infrastructure providers (IP1s), their partners (OEMs) and optical fibre maintenance entities and their vehicle move around for sites, fibre and DTH restoration, tower operations, call centres operations, warehouses operations, CAF processing units (for activation and SIM swapping), data centres operations, maintaining stores, network operating centre and other telecom/internet related infrastructure operations.
Telecom/internet deployment, maintenance and operations are an essential part of the country’s information infrastructure as well as the backbone of work/study from home for the common people. Telecom/internet infrastructure is also crucial in event of dissemination of the information to the public at large, financial transactions by the public and banks and public entertainment, etc..
Requesting for DoT support, Lt. Gen. Dr SP Kochhar, director general, COAI, said, “The covid-19 pandemic has shown that connectivity is essential, more than ever before, for citizens. We want to express our sincere thanks to DoT for extending the support to the telecom industry in the past during ongoing COVID pandemic to maintain connectivity. Telecom being an essential service, COAI has requested DoT to issue directions to chief secretaries across India to allow the staff/personnel/field engineers of TSPs, ISPs, infrastructure providers (IP1s), their partners (OEMs) and optical fibre maintenance entities who are fully vaccinated must be exempted from the e-pass process and movement is allowed on production of valid company ID card/ authorisation letter”.
