India's Department of Telecom has instructed the nation's mobile operators to reduce their carbon footprints by 17% within thee next five years.
The ministry is requiring operators to reduce diesel consumption and to deploy green energy technology, the Economic Timesreported.
As part of these requirements, operators must set a target of having 50% of their mobile towers in rural areas and 20% in urban areas are run on hybrid power – a combination of grid supplies and renewable energy – by 2015.
By 2020, the targets will increase to 75% of towers in rural areas and 33% of towers in urban zones.
The ministry will itself commit to using green technologies to power the 1,863 towers that are being set up in areas affected by Naxalite terrorism.
It has also set up an inter-ministerial panel that will monitor carbon reduction within the telecom sector and ensure operators are meeting the targets.
Announcing the plan, the ministry said it has decided to set the targets now that the local telecom industry is starting to recover from a period of intense competition and depressed service revenues.