As part of the global initiatives to contain greenhouse gas emissions and with a view to reduce carbon emissions in the telecom sector, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had, in April 2011, given its recommendations on the ?Approach towards Green Telecommunications?. The government has recently accepted these and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has accordingly issued directives to operators.
The highlights of these are:
? At least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 20 per cent of urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power (renewable energy technology [RET]) and grid power) by 2015.
? Further, 75 per cent of rural towers and 33 per cent of urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power by 2020.
? All telecom products, equipment and services in the telecom network should be certified ?Green Passport? by 2015. The Telecommunication Engineering Centre will certify the telecom products, equipment and services on the basis of energy consumption ratings.
? All service providers should declare the carbon footprint of their network operations to TRAI. The declaration of carbon footprints should be made twice a year.
? Service providers should adopt a voluntary code of practice, which will encompass energy-efficient network planning, infrastructure sharing and adoption of RET to reduce the carbon footprint. To achieve this, the following measures can be undertaken:
? Network operators should progressively induct carefully designed and optimised energy efficient radio networks that reduce the overall power consumption.
? Service providers should endeavour to ensure that the total power consumption of each base transceiver station does not exceed 500 W by 2020.
? Passive as well as active methodologies should be used for infrastructure sharing to minimise the eventuality of locating new sites within the vicinity of existing towers (within 200 metres in urban areas and within 2 km in rural areas). Service providers should plan to have at least 10 per cent of their sites actively shared by 2014.
? A phased programme should be put in place by telecom service providers to have their cell sites, particularly in rural areas, powered by hybrid renewable sources including wind energy, solar energy, fuel cells or a combination thereof. The eventual goal under this phased programme is to ensure that around 50 per cent of all towers in rural areas are powered by hybrid renewable sources by 2015.
? Service providers should evolve a ?Carbon Credit Policy? in line with carbon credit norms with the ultimate objective of achieving a maximum of 50 per cent over the carbon footprint levels of the base year (2011) in rural areas and achieving a maximum of 66 per cent over the carbon footprint levels of the base year in urban areas by 2020.
? Service providers should aim at setting carbon emission reduction targets for mobile networks at 5 per cent by 2012-13, 8 per cent by 2014-15, 12 per cent by 2016-17 and 17 per cent by 2018-19.
To conclude, DoT has directed that all mobile manufacturers/distributors should place collection bins at appropriate places for the collection of e-waste ? mobile phones, batteries, chargers, etc. The e-waste should be safely disposed of or recycled as per the prevailing standards. The collection, storage, transportation, segregation, refurbishment, dismantling, recycling and disposal of e-waste should be in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the pollution control boards
