Govt launches GatiShakti Sanchar portal to accelerate RoW approvals ahead of 5G roll-out
New Delhi: Communications, Electronics & IT on Saturday launched "GatiShakti Sanchar” portal for Centralised Right of Way (RoW) approvals in order to speed up fibre laying and tower installations, ahead of the 5G roll-out in the country.
The portal will enable applicants from various Telecom Service providers (TSPs) as well as Infrastructure providers (IPs) to apply at a common single portal for Right of Way permissions to lay down Optical Fibre Cable and for erecting mobile towers to State/UT Governments and local bodies.
As it smoothens the process of RoW permissions as well as faster approvals; it is believed to facilitate easy rollout of 5G services, in which a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) is installed at very short intervals.
For effective monitoring of RoW applications across the country, the portal even comes fitted with a potent dashboard showing State and District wise pendency status.
Vaishnaw legal backing for the right of way (RoW) for telecom infrastructure projects will be put in place by December this year.
The portal has been adopted by all central ministries, state governments and union territories, the Telecom Minister said.
“The portal shall act as an enabler to the objective of 'Ease of doing business' for telecommunications infrastructure works in accordance with the vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister. The timely disposal of RoW applications of various service and infrastructure providers shall enable speedy infrastructure creation which would be an enabler for timely rollout of the 5G Network also," he said.
He indicated advantages of adoption of technological tools in governance and emphasized and deeply appreciated the role and cooperation of the states and UTs with the Central Government in the operationalization of the integrated centralised GatiShakti Sanchar portal.
He noted that the portal has already cut short the time taken for such approvals from nearly 100 days to approximately 22, and legal backing would reduce that time down to close to a week.
The integration of the portal with the Geographic Information System (GIS) will also give state governments and various agencies added visibility into the optical fibre mesh and digital networks that are in place, he added.
The launch of the portal follows the RoW draft policy guidelines released in April to bring consistency in RoW-related procedures across states.
The Centre also plans to link various other portals handled by railways, highways, and waterways, among others to the GatiShakti Sanchar portal, and the interlinking work should be completed in the next three to four months.
The portal has been built by the Madhya Pradesh State Electronics Development Corporation.
According to reports, it has already received more than 50,000 RoW applications, out of which around 28,000 have been approved.
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