Telcos may get license fee rebate for running green towers

To encourage telecom operators to use renewable sources of energy, the government may offer graded license fee rebates of 1%, 2% and 3% for telcos who run 20%, 35% and 50% of their towers on green energy.

If approved, “the rebates will become effective" in the financial year subsequent to the year" of a telco meeting these "green tower conversion" targets,” media reports quoting an internal note of a DoT (Department of Telecom) panel said.

Currently, telcos fork out 8% of their annual revenue as licence fee.

DoT targets to go-green and therefore, is planning performance-based incentives to telecom companies that use 'green' solutions for running their towers. The telecom department’s green policy requires telcos to migrate 50% of all mobile towers in rural areas and 20% in urban areas to hybrid power by 2015.

To encourage green energy deployment in telecom tower installations, a graded licence fee rebate mechanism was recommended to help cross-subsidise telco investments as the initial cost of harnessing green energy is huge, media reports said.