With the Municipal Corporation of Delhi planning to seal illegal cellphone towers in the capital from Wednesday, Delhiites may face some harrowing time as far as cellphone signals and connectivity is concerned, reports The Times of India.
After a meeting on Monday, MCD officials decided that at least 60 illegal towers would be sealed this week — five in each of the 12 municipal zones. The modalities of the sealing process are yet to be worked out and will be decided on Tuesday after a meeting of deputy commissioners.
Officials said that of 5,364 towers in the city, 2952 were illegal. If the sealing drive takes off, south Delhi will be the worst hit. In this part of Delhi, MCD has already sealed 35 towers and served show-cause notice to the operators of another 250.
According to industry sources, the tower operators are going to file a petition against the notices served to them on April 8, 2010.
On February 9, the MCD came out with a new policy on mobile towers. According to the revised guidelines, the amount payable by the service providers to MCD for installing a tower has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
A few weeks earlier, the civic agency had organized camps to allow tower operators to regularize their towers. ‘‘We organized camps but the operators are not ready to pay Rs 5 lakh fee. We have told them they will have to pay as per the new policy and Rs 1 lakh will not do,'' said a senior MCD official. MCD hopes to earn Rs 20 crore from the installation charges they are likely to receive from the service providers.
The civic agency has already sealed 300 illegal towers and given several deadlines to tower operators to apply for regularization in keeping with new guidelines.
