L-G Saxena approves notification of 'Right of Way Policy': Sources

New Delhi: Delhi L-G V K Saxena has approved notification on a file related to "Right of Way (RoW) Policy" for underground and overground telecommunications infrastructure, which was put up directly to him by the Chief Secretary on Thursday. The policy is critical for digitalisation, telephony and smooth roll out of 5G services in the national Capital.

This Policy was stuck since 2020 due to pointless and persistent politicking on part of the AAP government and its Ministers, as per sources. While the RoW Policy should have been notified way back, after the GoI notified the Indian Telegraph Rules in 2016, the AAP government in total disregard of governance responsibilities, finally decided to formulate a draft policy in January, 2020.

However, owing to the fact that the Policy could have benefitted the local bodies in terms of revenues from telecom operators, the Deputy CM, Manish Sisodia returned the file meant for notifying the Policy, back to the UD Department with the observations that "Local Body, Administrative Authority, areas of jurisdiction, and authority for issuing permission are overlapping and contradictory and needs to be clearly defined and delineated….", in July, 2022.

Upon the file being put up to him again in September, 2022, Sisodia resorted to embroiling it in red tape and sent the file to the Law Department for re-examination.

Thereafter, when the file duly vetted by the Law Department, came to Sisodia through the Law Minister Kailash Gahlot on November 1, he again marked it back to the UD Secretary without assigning any reason, the sources added.

Considering the forthcoming G20 Summit and that the rollout of 5G is in the advanced stages, the chief secretary directly put up the file for the Lt Governor's approval since it involved notification under the Telegraph Rules, which is specifically a matter of the Union list, on November 23.