In a rare display of teamwork, CEOs from these top 6 telecom firms have written a combined letter to DoT and TRAI, requesting them to stop sealing of towers, especially in New Delhi and Mumbai. They have directly blamed his tower-sealing drive for call drops.

1. Industry Letter on Arbitrary Sealing by MCD
September 11, 2015
Shri Rakesh Garg,
Secretary, DoT & Chairman, TC
Department of Telecommunications
Sanchar Bhawan, 20, Ashoka Road
New Delhi – 110001
Shri R. S. Sharma,
Chairman,
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,
Mahanagar Doorsanchar Bhawan,
Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg.
New Delhi – 110002
Subject: Widespread and Arbitrary sealing of Telecom Towers and Pole Antennas
(Sites) by all three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (‘MCD’)
Respected Sir,
We are grateful for the efforts of DoT and TRAI on working with us to address call drop
issues. As we committed in the meetings, we have put and will continue to invest in Base
stations and electronics in 2G, 3G and 4G to provide good customer experience. Lot of
resources have been put into optimization as well.
We also initiated discussion with local MCD authorities to find resolution to tower sealing.
However, while the discussions are underway and there is litigation in progress, the MCD
continues to seal sites on a continuous basis.
Hence we are constrained to bring to your notice that despite your good efforts and
intervention to assist the Operators deal with the issue of call drops, this continuing unilateral
activity of the Delhi Municipalities of sealing our cell sites will cause increase in call drops
and inconvenience to consumers.
The consumers and Industry are suffering due to these unilateral actions and are unable to
deal with the almost daily shut down of cell sites. While on the one hand the industry has
stepped up investments in technology, in spectrum, in people and in a range of automated
tools for network optimisation to improve networks, these actions are making the entire effort
and investment futile.
The Industry has been mandated by your good-self and the Hon’ble Prime Minister to ensure
no call drops, but the MCD actions are at cross purposes with this objective and hamper the
efforts of the industry to address the issue. It must be noted that with every 40 sites being
sealed, there is an average of 20% increase in call drops. In the last two days itself, the
MCD has gone ahead and sealed 16 sites across Delhi. In the last month 70 sites have been
sealed. Similarly, sites have been shut down in Mumbai also due to arbitrary actions by
municipal corporation and RWAs. In the last year alone, about 1700 sites have been shut
down all over India.
We believe that the local bodies should act in consonance with the constitutional principles
of the larger public interest and in alignment with the larger vision of the Government of
India. In many instances, the MCD has been sealing the Telecom Towers despite operators
having the due permissions and / or after having encashed the requisite fee. Further, the
orders of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court to not seal the sites where there are due permissions

2. Industry Letter on Arbitrary Sealing by MCD
have been ignored. Further, the sealed sites ordered by the High Court to be de-sealed have
also not been done.
While we continue to seek legal redress and dialogue with MCD through COAI, AUSPI and
TAIPA, we request your urgent help and intervention in de-escalating the situation. We
request that all the sites which have been sealed in the last few weeks be de-sealed to
ensure call drop issue is immediately improved.
In the meantime, we shall continue our investment and optimization program. We are
hopeful that with your kind support, we will find immediate relief of de-sealing sites and
through dialogue find lasting solution to this issue.
Yours Sincerely
CC : Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble MoC&IT
Gopal Vittal
JMD & CEO
Bharti Airtel Ltd.
Himanshu Kapania
CEO
Idea Cellular
Mr. Sergey Savchenko
CEO
Siestema Shyam
Teleservices Ltd.
Gurdip Singh
CEO – Consumer
Business
Reliance
Communications
N. Srinath
Managing Director
Tata Teleservices
& Tata Teleservices
(Maharashtra)
Sunil Sood
CEO & MD
Vodafone India Limited