Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: In a new appeal submitted to the Bombay High Court in Goa, the All Goa Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) is contesting the executive engineer of the Electricity Department’s jurisdiction to send demand letters for unpaid rent. Local Internet providers have taken this move in retaliation for the Electricity Department’s cable cutting.
The operators told the court that, in exchange for the government not punishing them, they would be willing to pay 10% of the total amount owed. A hearing on the case is planned for next week.
The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court had earlier declined to grant a stay to the All-Goa Internet Service Providers’ Association against the electricity department’s move to cut internet cables from electricity poles due to policy violations.
The association told the high court that it has around 80 members. The association was asked to get its members to pay 20% of each of their arrears for the period between 2021 and Dec 2024.
The high court asked them to deposit the amount with govt. State govt had pressed for partial payment from the service providers to process their applications.
No permissions were taken by service providers between 2021 and 2024 to hang their cables on the electricity department’s poles, advocate general Devidas Pangam told reporters after the hearing.
The service providers neither paid rent to the department nor applied for any permissions to use the electricity department’s poles for these years, Pangam said.
He said the rules require that they take permissions and pay money to govt, both of which they did not do.
The service providers have to pay Rs 300 per month per pole used to govt, Pangam said.
