In the wake of cyclone Nisarga, likely to affect services in Maharashtra including Mumbai, Daman, Diu, and Gujarat, the telecom companies are coordinating their preparations with the DoT HQ in Delhi and with the local DoT control centres in these service areas. The efforts are in full swing to implement steps to ensure the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) as part of the disaster management measures in these areas.

To ensure connectivity in the areas likely to be hit by cyclone, telcos are coordinating with OEMs and tower companies and have made joint teams in the field to attend to any outage. Operators and tower companies are keeping available key spare parts, fuel and important equipment like generators, antennas, cables, microwave radio, etc. for use in times of emergency. Key locations for diesel stocking have been identified for speedy and priority access to fuel and requests have been made to relevant authorities for electric supply on priority.

A critical help that has been requested from the local administration is the permissions for inter-state movement of field teams where there are still restrictions due to Covid-19, for e.g. Gujarat to Daman. Also, teams have been geared up for repair and restoration of optical fibre cuts and tower damages.

Intra Circle Roaming arrangements to enable any subscriber to latch on to any working network are being instituted. Close monitoring of the networks is being done both by telcos and infrastructure providers to enable timely identification and restoration of any outages that take place. The industry is also prepared with ‘cell on wheels’ to maintain network operations in case any existing telecom infrastructure gets damaged. DoT and its field offices are working closely with industry to make joint efforts for coordination with NDRF and the local administration.

To be attributed to Mr. Rajan S Mathews, DG, COAI