No cell phone tower illegal, claims industry

Although the three civic bodies have listed hundreds of mobile phone towers as illegal, the industry denies the existence of such towers the city. Ritam Halder reports.

Although the three civic bodies have listed hundreds of mobile phone towers as illegal, the industry denies the existence of such towers the city.

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Umang Das, director general of the Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA), said such towers cannot be termed illegal as the process of taking permission for them had already been initiated.

“Telecom towers were set up from 1995 onwards and are being used for essential and public utility services in accordance with the National Telecom Policy and the licences issued by the Union government. These should not be termed as ‘illegal’ because for all the towers, either permission had been granted by the MCD or application for permissions along with documents and fees had been submitted to corporations concerned. However, for reasons not known to us, the formal permissions are yet to be issued,” Das said. He said a pending case in the high court, which will be heard on July 19, will clarify the matter.

“In 2010, the Unified Corporation introduced a revised policy which raised the fees from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. We challenged this in a single bench of the high court, which struck down the revised fee and directed the civic body to return the hiked amount to operators who had already made the payments.They challenged the order in a divisional bench,” Das said.

The corporators, however, disagreed. Leader of the House in the North corporation Mahender Nagpal said, “The towers tagged illegal are the ones running without permission. We will keep on taking action against them.”