No new licences for mobile towers, warns south corp

NEWDELHI: The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has warned mobile operators that it would not issue fresh licences unless they get their illegal towers regularised.

The matter was discussed during SDMC’S standing committee’s meeting on Friday. Councillors said officials were clearing new licences even when the issue of old and illegal mobile towers was yet to be sorted out. A senior civic official said there were approximately 4,000 mobile towers in SDMC areas and of them, only 1,200 were legal.

Standing committee chairperson Shikha Rai said, “We had made it clear to the officials that no permission would be given unless the issue is sorted out and mobile operators follow the settlement agreement finalised after the high court’s direction in 2017.”

“The officials were asked to inspect illegal cell tower sites and tell them to obtain structural safety certificates by submitting pending arrears and making changes in the building. If nothing happens, such complexes will be sealed,” said Rai.

A senior SDMC official said on the condition of anonymity that the civic agency had received at least 300 applications from operators for installing new mobile towers in the past six months.

“Though permission was given in some cases, we stopped the process after the standing committee chairperson’s instruction,” he said.

The three municipal bodies had sealed hundreds of illegal towers for not complying with rules of the Tower Policy, 2010, such as not obtaining structural safety certificate from the corporation, since 2012. “But we had to discontinue the sealing drive after a group of cell tower operators challenged the Tower Policy in the high court. They opposed the increase in licensing fees from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh,” an MCD official said.

“Considering the fact that sealing of hundreds of towers resulted in frequent call drops, a settlement agreement was signed between the civic bodies and service providers in January 2017,” the official said.

According to the settlement, service providers were required to deposit ₹2 lakh per tower (instead of ₹5 lakh) with effect from January 2015, after which they would be given permission to erect towers for a five-year period. In August 2018, the civic agencies had called a meeting with operators to ensure adherence of the policy. In the meeting, north corporation standing committee chairperson Veena Virmani proposed to regularise 2,000 cellphone towers provided service providers agree to the settlement agreement. But no concrete solution was reached.