Tower firms seek Jharkhand, Bihar govt's intervention against threat of disruption of services by unions

"A self-proclaimed union has extended an illegal threat to disrupt telecom services across in both the states - Bihar and Jharkhand if their alleged illegal demands specifically regarding monetary benefits are not fulfilled," T R Dua, Director General of Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA) said in a statement.

"We have requested Chief Secretary of Jharkhand, Sukhdeo Singh and Chief Secretary of Bihar, Amir Subhani for their urgent intervention in issuing necessary directions to all concerned authorities in all the districts to ensure uninterrupted telecom connectivity and the safety of telecom employees," Dua said.

DIPA members include Indus Towers, American Tower Corporation, Summit Digitel (Reliance Jio Infratel) and Tower Vision.

According to a statement issued by DIPA, the tower companies' initiatives of reducing dependence on diesel have not gone down well with the unions.

"The reduction of diesel has not gone well with the Union, and they are threatening coercive actions if the supply of Diesel is curtailed even by a litre," DIPA said.

The telecom infrastructure providers have also approached the law enforcement agencies and police officials for support.

"Complaints have been logged but no action has been initiated against the miscreants yet and the telecom towers were shut down by the unions," DIPA said.

Dua further added, "Our telecom field engineers and their families have also received threats to their life. Further, we have serious apprehensions that can draw from the actions of unions on the ground, and that there is a serious and tangible threat of mass disruption at the telecom towers of our members in the coming days which will cause severe outages and disruption of telecom services in Bihar and Jharkhand and badly impact the network of BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio." (ANI)