Illegal cellular towers to go in Nagpur

Central India may become a "dead zone" for cellphones if the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has its way. The civic body has invited applications for award of contract aimed at demolishing hundreds of base transceiver station (BTS) towers in the city.

According to assistant director of town planning, Sujata Kadu, all BTS units in the city are illegal as no cellphone company has taken the necessary approval. However, all have now approached the NMC seeking relief and post facto approval.

The town planning department has received 259 applications from different mobile companies and of these 109 have been given what is called a "demand note" granting conditional approval on payment of a hefty fine.

The remaining applications are being processed, Kadu said. The NMC's decision to pull down cell phone towers came following a public interest litigation filed before the High Court wherein the plaintiff alleged that over 400 towers had been erected in the city without obtaining valid permission.

The petitioner, one Jamal Siddiqui, relied on the data provided by the NMC itself when the same had been demanded under the Right to Information Act. The information provided by the NMC reveals that no stability report was provided before erection of towers and no clearance was obtained from the fire department. The cell companies also failed to obtain a "no objection" certificate for use of microwave signals from the civil aviation department. The information, which dates back to May 2006, revealed that between 2003 and 2006 only 17 mobile towers had been granted permission.

The NMC has also given details of illegal towers in various areas of the city but this too has been challenged by the petitioner who believes that there are in fact many more towers than being counted by civic body officials. The towers on rooftops of cooperative housing societies or other buildings have also found to be unauthorised. The NMC has said that towers erected on rooftops of buildings ranged between 3 metres to 24 metres in height while those erected on the ground rose to a height of 42 metres. A shelter, a generator set, air-conditioning unit and other machinery was also housed next to each tower.

The court is also expected to examine lack of coordination between NMCs departments for the information provided to Siddiqui shows that 17 towers were cleared while the town planning department has claimed that none were cleared. The PIL has demanded that all the unauthorised towers be pulled down.

A division bench consisting of Justice Dilip Sinha and Justice R V More has directed the NMC to act according to the law against cell phone companies who failed to take permission from the competent authority.

This has led to the NMC carrying advertisements in local dailies inviting tenders for demolishing the towers.

Interestingly, the pre-qualification for awarding the contract is experience in removing "mobile towers". Such contractors, sources said, would be difficult to locate as most had experience in erecting BTS units and none in demolishing them.