Steps taken for greening Telecom industry: Govt
09 March, New Delhi
Government has taken various steps for greening the Indian Telecom industry, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
In a written reply, Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said,” government has initiated the process of greening the sector by powering 75 per cent of rural towers and 33 per cent of urban towers by hybrid power (Renewable energy Technologies +grid power) by 2020.”
Other measures taken by the government include (1) the service providers have to ensure that the total power consumption of each Base Transceiver Station (BTS) will not exceed 500 w by the year 2020, (2)The cell sites of telecom service providers, particularly in rural areas would be powered by hybrid renewable sources, including wind energy, solar energy among others(3) service providers should aim at carbon emission targets for the mobile network at five per cent by the year 2012-13, eight per cent 2014-15, 12 per cent by the year 2016-17 and 17 per cent by the year 2018-19.”
Department of telecom undertook 20 Renewable energy Technologies(RET) pilot projects through BSNL with subsidy support from Ministry of New and Renewable energy. Also, 400 RET projects were taken up by various Telecom service Providers with support from the Renewable Energy ministry.