Question : Mobile Towers in Maharashtra

(a) the number of mobile towers sanctioned to be set up in Maharashtra during each of the last three years;

(b) the number and details of mobile towers out of these set up so far, location-wise;

(c) the number of mobile towers which have not been set up so far, location-wise along with the reasons therefor;

(d) whether responsibility has been fixed by the Government and if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor; and

(e) the steps taken by the Government to expedite the setting up of remaining mobile towers?

MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS,
HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND
ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
(SHRI SANJAY DHOTRE)

(a) to (e) Following Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) supported schemes have been provisioned for providing mobile connectivity to the uncovered areas of Maharashtra state:

(i) Under Left Wing Extremism (LWE) Phase-I scheme, provision of mobile connectivity at 65 tower locations in LWE affected areas in the State of Maharashtra has been implemented. A list is enclosed as Annexure-I.
(ii) Under LWE Phase-II scheme, tender for provisioning of 2G+4G based mobile services in LWE affected states has been floated on 04.11.2019 at 2217 mobile tower locations including 125 mobile tower locations in Maharashtra, a list of which is enclosed as Annexure-II. The targeted completion time of project is 18 months from the date of signing of the agreement with successful bidder.

However, as on 05.03.2020 there are 62858 number of mobile towers and about 2.38 Lakhs number of Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs)in the state of Maharashtra including Mumbai License Service Area. Further, new Mobile Towers/ BTSs are installed by Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) on continuous basis to improve coverage and/or capacity of their networks based on their techno-commercial requirements.