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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has brought out a consultation paper on ?Green Telecommunications?, where it seeks the views of stakeholders on ways to check carbon emissions, promote energy efficient technologies and manage e-waste, given the rapid growth in the sector.

According to TRAI, operation of telecommunications networks requires electrical power. The expense on energy accounts for a significant share of the operational cost of these networks.

This is more so in the rural areas where the availability of power is uncertain. The use of diesel generators to ensure continuous power supply has the disadvantage of increasing the greenhouse gas emission and consequently increasing the carbon footprint, which has a deleterious impact on the environment.

As TRAI has it, industry estimates peg the total consumption of diesel for telecom tower equipment powering and cooling to about two billion litres which produces about 5.3 million litres of carbon dioxide annually.

While the contribution of the telecommunication sector to the global carbon footprint is low compared to other sectors like transportation and construction, it nevertheless contributes a significant share. Moreover, with more growth expected in the communications sector, especially in the mobile segment the level of energy consumption by networks is only going to increase.

Efforts are afoot, all over the world, to find measures to deal with this issue.  TRAI believes that as the second largest and fastest growing market in the world, there is need for India to step in with green solutions. Besides, as a country heavily dependent on import of petroleum products when it has abundant renewable energy sources there is scope for innovative measures towards making telecommunications green.

TRAI believes that now is the opportune time to focus on energy efficient equipment and renewable sources of energy. The TRAI paper also aims to find measures to help the telecom industry reduce carbon footprint, evolve a framework for carbon credit policy, promoting energy efficient devices and utilise renewable sources of energy and manage e-waste.

TRAI has invited stakeholder comments and counter comments before March 21, 2011.