Offers its 12,000 towers to service providers in low mobile penetration northern states of Punjab,Haryana,Himachal and J&K It wheels almost half of the countrys power on its transmission network. Soon Powergrid will rent out its transmission towers to mobile service providers in northern states of Punjab,Haryana,J&K and Himachal. The Central transmission company has invited tenders for its nearly 12,000 transmission tower 4,000 each in Punjab and Haryana,3,000 in J&K and 1,000 in Himachal atop which cellphone towers can be mounted. The mobile penetration in rural areas of these four states is comparatively lower as compared to other parts of the country. So to begin with,we have invited tenders for Punjab,Haryana,J&K and Himachal. Since mobile towers require a minimum height of 30 metre from the ground,about one lakh out of Powergrid's nearly 1.5 lakh towers in the country are eligible for such use. Even out of those eligible,10 to 15 per cent can finally be used for mobile towers as the latter require a minimum distance of 2 to 2.5 km between them, said R N Nayak,director (operations) of the company. A telecom division official of Powergrid,however,said the number of eligible towers is decided through radio frequency mapping done by telecom operators. The percentage can be much higher than our assessment of 10 to 15 per cent as it is for the user,mobile service providers in this case,to decide how much of distance between two towers is good, he said. The bids of mobile service providers will be opened in December. The company today announced the opening its further public offer (FPO) of 84.18 crore equity shares which has already been oversubscribed after it opened this week. Its initial public offer (IPO) was opened in 2007. A relatively young company formed in 1989,this Navratnas turnover has grown 13 times in 18 years and it was ranked as eighth fastest growing energy company in the world this year,said Nayak. Other than transmission and consultancy,it had also diversified into telecom business and established a telecom network of more than 21,000 km across the country. About 93 per cent of its revenue comes from transmission,consultancy services make up four per cent of it and telecom the remaining two per cent,he added. Rs 1,300 cr power ring around Punjab by 2012 Punjabs transmission system will be ready to export power even before it becomes power surplus. Central transmission company,Powergrid,is creating a ring comprising nearly 1500 transmission towers to encircle the state for easy movement of power in and out of the state. Developed on the concept of a ring road,the ring main would have high-voltage 400-KV (kilovolt) main lines to ensure movement of power to other states at minimum transmission loss as higher the voltage lower are the transmission losses. Subsequently,towers with lower voltage 220-KV lines would be installed. The project is expected to be completed by 2012,even before any of Punjabs four upcoming mega power plants are likely to be commissioned. The work is being conceptualised and executed by Powergrid for the newly-created Punjab State Power Transmission Corporation Limited.
