Student-drafted mobile tower policies sent to govt

For budding lawyer Tanya Nayyar, 19, the absence of a centralised legislation to tackle illegally installed mobile phone towers is a big cause of concern. “We need more stringent rules and regulations,” said Nayyar, a third-year law student of Gandhinagar’s Gujarat National Law University, reports Reetika Subramanian.

For budding lawyer Tanya Nayyar, 19, the absence of a centralised legislation to tackle illegally installed mobile phone towers is a big cause of concern. “We need more stringent rules and regulations,” said Nayyar, a third-year law student of Gandhinagar’s Gujarat National Law University.

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This is no longer a pipe dream. Nayyar’s version of the draft Mobile Towers (Installation and Regulation) Bill (2013) will soon reach the union Department of Telecommunication (DoT). As part of the national legislative drafting competition ‘Conficiendis Legislativa’, organised by SVKM’s Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Vile Parle, the top three entries for a regulatory bill for mobile phone towers have been sent to the authorities. In all, 28 teams across 20 national colleges took part in the competition.

While the DoT proposed guidelines on the installation of mobile phone towers for state and local authorities in September 2012, there is no well-defined central legislation on the issue.

“There is growing concern about the possible health hazards of illegal mobile phone towers across the country. So we decided to invite draft bills for India-specific regulations on the issue from budding lawyers across the country,” said the principal, Dr LR Dwivedi.