NEW DELHI, INDIA: The government has finally woken up to the cause of green telecom. It has issued a directive to operators to use hybrid power. In its mandate, the telcos will be required to operate 50 per cent and 20 per cent towers with hybrid energy resources in rural and urban areas respectively by 2015.
TRAI in its communication has said that service providers should declare carbon footprint of their network operations twice a year. The Telecommunication Engineering Center would certify telecom equipment and services on the basis of the Energy consumption Rating (ECR).
The regulator also said that the service providers should evolve a carbon credit policy in line with carbon credit norms. It also asked the operators to reduce their greenhouse gas emission targets by five per cent in the current financial year. TRAI aims to meet 17 per cent reduction by 2020.
It also stresses on the need of network's telecom products and solutions to be certified with 'Green Passport' program. The industry estimates that new policy may lead to the reduction of 5 million tonnes of carbon emission.
Since India's telecom sector is one of the largest diesel users, the move is expected to decrease diesel dependency and facilitate green telecom