According to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology and Railways, the draft version of the new telecom bill will be put up for public consultation in a week. The new framework will provide legal backing to the right of way (RoW) rules rolled out recently.
Speaking at an event organised by the Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA), Vaishnaw also said that telecom operators and other stakeholders would have to significantly improve the quality of service. The minister asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to float a consultation paper to improve the quality of service parameters in the telecom sector by three or four times than what it is presently.
Further, the minister informed that as part of the railway land lease policy announced by the government, a fixed charge of Rs 1,000 will be levied whenever optic fibre crosses a railway line, instead of the current land value of the area.
Vaishnaw added that the government is targeting an aggressive timeline to have at least 80 per cent 5G coverage in a short timeframe, as compared to a larger timeframe to reach 40-50 per cent coverage in many other countries.
