Various aspects described herein relate to a user equipment (UE) that can receive a configuration for a radio bearer with an SCell in a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration procedure initiated by a primary cell (PCell) serving the UE. A component carrier with the SCell can be activated based at least in part on receiving a control element indicating to activate the component carrier for the radio bearer. It can be determined whether a first deactivation timer, for deactivating the component carrier with the SCell after a period of detected inactivity on the SCell, is configured by the PCell. A second deactivation timer can be configured for deactivating the component carrier with the SCell based at least in part on a determination that the first deactivation timer is not configured by the PCell or that a first configured duration of the first deactivation timer achieves a threshold.