Tower technicians damage telecom sites leading to network shutdown

Massive disturbance to essential mobile services, with nearly 2600 mobile sites impacted across eleven districts in Punjab and Haryana
On the evening of 30th May 2017, a group of tower technicians damaged nearly 2600 mobile tower sites (both active and passive telecom infrastructure) in Punjab and Haryana, thereby disrupting network connectivity in eight districts in Punjab namely Bhatinda, Patiala, Sangrur, Moga, Mansa, Fazilka, Ferozepur and Barnala; and three districts in Haryana namely - Rohtak, Rewari and Hissar. This has caused a lot of inconvenience to the people in the states and further led to loss of property and business revenue due to complete halt in the communication network. Given that Punjab is a state that shares the international border, some locations like Ferozpur and Fazilka are of prime importance. This kind of complete network blackout, caused by these technicians, poses threat to National Security as well.
The State Police Departments are considering this law and order condition and collaborating with the concerned organizations to restore situation to normal. Over 15 complaints have been filed across Mansa, Samana, Bathinda, Ferozpur and Faridkot under Section 25 of Telegraph Act. Necessary action is being taken against people involved in these anti-social activities. During Take Over of network, the miscreant technicians resorted to confrontation/violence with our team members, thereby creating hurdle in network operations. Two FIRs have been registered and culprits have been taken in custody.
“We maintain that there is only a small group of technicians, who are typically involved in malpractices like diesel pilferage and network disruption act. Our teams on-ground are relentlessly working to improve the situation and minimise the impact. We are working with the Police departments to ensure that necessary legal action is taken and are thankful for their continuous support in curbing this practice,” said Mr. Pawan Srivastav, O&M Head, Aerial Telecom.
Mr. Srivastav further added, “We appeal to the rest of the technicians not to succumb to any pressure and continue working towards delivering seamless network connectivity to the residents of Punjab and Haryana”.
In Punjab and Haryana, with the continuity of instances, companies have uncovered that some of the technicians are involved in wilfully damaging the telecom and power equipment (both active and passive telecom infrastructure) at sites. Also, they threaten and influence the fellow technicians to join their mob and cause network outage. It has been seen that the electricity quality and supply in the state of Punjab has improved a lot in the last few years, yet the unreasonable demands of technicians for diesel for running the sites has not reduced proportionately. The unrest and resort to such anti-social activities by these technicians, is due to steps taken by tower companies to monitor the diesel consumption; and bringing greater efficiency and field discipline in running daily business operations.
The telecommunications sector functions as the backbone of Indian economy servicing over 1.17 billion subscribers multiple times, every day, across the country. In Punjab, with approximately 15,000 mobile tower sites 35 million telecom subscribers are served and over 20,000 people are directly and indirectly employed with the telecom industry. Telecom towers are the backbone of the telecommunication services in India and have transformed nation into a socio-economic knowledge intensive society. These towers are the bedrock of extending seamless connectivity for both voice and data to the end consumers.