Industry body FICCI has written to Punjab Chief Secretary to intervene in incidents of "vandalism" of Jio’s mobile towers, as it urged the State to step up efforts to ensure that such incidents do not occur.
FICCI, in the recent communication, said that with 1,800 towers being "vandalised", the subscriber traffic load is likely to shift to other towers in the vicinity, which could impact the quality of calls and internet data speeds there.
"The impact is also likely to be felt on services of other providers since calls landing on and originating from Jio’s networks may face congestion due to lesser number of cell sites," said Rajinder Gupta, Chairman - FICCI Regional Advisory Council in the communication dated December 28.
Such incidents also "discourage" the industry from expanding its reach in the State.
"Against this backdrop, FICCI humbly requests for your kind intervention to take immediate action against the miscreants who caused this damage, and prevention of any further damage...," said the communication addressed to Chief Secretary of Punjab, Vini Mahajan.
With its telecom infrastructure in the State being damaged amid farmers' protest, Reliance Jio had recently written to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh seeking his intervention for action against those responsible for the incidents of "sabotage and vandalism".
In the letter to the Chief Minister, Jio had flagged the acts of sabotage and vandalism at its network sites "by unknown persons in the disguise of ongoing farmers’ agitation".
ASSOCHAM too wrote to the Punjab Chief Minister recently saying that reports of widespread damage to key infrastructure like telecom towers were disturbing and could dent the image of the State.
The Chief Minister on Monday had directed police to take strict action against vandalisation of mobile towers and disruption of telecom services in the State during the farmers’ stir.
Asserting that he will not let Punjab plunge into anarchy at any cost and nobody can be allowed to take the law into their hands, the Chief Minister had said he had been forced to toughen his stance as his repeated appeals to perpetrators of such acts had been ignored.
