Chhattisgarh civic bodies to act against illegal mobile towers

Norms stipulate building owner to seek permission before installing tower

Civic bodies in Chhattisgarh have planed major operation against mobile towers set illegaly atop private buildings.

In the capital city of Raipur only, over 200 towers stalled without permission have been identified. The towers belong to all major telecom operators.

The Raipur Municipal Corporation conducted a survey in zone-7 and identified over two dozens illegal towers.

The city has been divided in eight zones and the officials are planning to conduct the survey in each zone to list out the number of illegal mobile towers.

“We are going to take stringent action and letter has been issued to the electricity distribution company asking to disconnect power supply to the illegal towers,” Chairman of RMC Prafulla Vishwakarma said. The campaign would continue and the other civic bodies in the state would also follow the line, he added.

Norms stipulate building owner to seek permission from local civic body for installing the tower on its roof. The authorities grant the permission after conducting survey in the area and collecting a fee of Rs 75,000. The civic body could impose a fine that could range from 15 to 50 times of the fee.

The officials said there had been no sign to identify legal towers posing serious problem to crackdown on the lawbreakers. The civic bodies are incurring heavy revenue loss.