Indore : The call drop problem is associated with two major factors—one is spectrum and the other is tower and the State Government should allow the telecom operators to put up their towers on the Govt land.

These views were expressed by Veer Inder Nath, CEO Bharti Airtel, MP-CG circle, in an exclusive interview with this correspondent.

Do telecom companies need support from government?

The young CEO of Bharti-Airtel said there are various things we need from the government. The first thing is space for putting up towers. We are in touch with the State Government and want spaces on the government land to put up towers because it would help us to provide seamless network coverage.

“We hope the government will be favorable and help us,” hr said. In other states, the governments have come forward with policies which allow the operators to put up towers in the government land. In fact, we want the Centre’s support to put up towers even on hospitals, because it would help patients to contact with their kin easily.

Do you think this proposal will help in addressing the call drop problem?

It will. See, the call drop is just a customer experience. It’s largely dependent on 2 or 3 things like enough sites and spectrums. These things are governed at the Central level. Every time when an auction is happened and as the company we have invested properly in it. We have bought spectrum 2G and 3G across the India. So we are investing and ready to invest as much as possible. We are requesting all the regulatory body and all the government to allow us to put more and more towers at the sites to give better and seamless coverage to our customers.

It’s commonly said that the problem of call drop in a particular area is just because of lack of towers there. What is the truth?

Of course it’s because of tower. For example, in India we have 4.20 lakh towers, which support 900 million users while in China there are 13 lakh towers to support 130 crore subscribers. Just see the gap. I think, MP is extremely rich with natural resources, so there is huge untapped opportunity.

As a part of Digital India, we are partner with the MP Government, in a campaign e-Shakhi, it is an internet literacy drive among women. MP_IT is working on it with us at block-level and organizing session to improve internet awareness among women and we are also giving them free internet use, so they become more comfortable.

Do companies work for customers?

I think whatever is favorable to customers is also favorable to company. Because companies can’t go against wishes of the customers. We are here to provide them best services. So long we are customer-friendly, we will be with customers and they will be with us and we will continue to grow.