PUNE: The vexed issue of taxing mobile towers located in the city is likely to be resolved as the standing committee of the Pune Municipal Corporation
(PMC) on Tuesday gave a green signal to penalise illegal towers and
regularise them. The committee expects collect Rs 25 crore from the
drive.

Vishal Tambe, the chairman of the committee, said the
administration will appoint an agency to carry out the process of
regularisation. “The aim is to generate revenue from use of towers which
are operating without paying a penny to the civic administration. There
are around 2,000 towers in the city and the civic body gets property
tax on just 750 of them. The installers of the remaining 1,250 towers
neither pay tax nor have they completed the paperwork,” said Tambe.

The chairman said that the PMC does not have an exact data on the
number of illegal or legal towers. “So all the towers, for which tax is
not paid, are considered illegal. At the same time, several towers are
operating without the required paper work. So, technically they are not
illegal. But the fact remains that the PMC is not getting any tax
against them. Now a survey will be done to identify illegal towers,”
said Tambe.

The building permission department had in January
submitted a proposal to the standing committee to appoint an agency for
the survey. According to the proposal, the agency is expected to contact
cell phone service providers and check if they have completed the
formalities while installing the towers. The staff appointed by the
agency is also expected to inspect the sites. The agency will keep a
record of violations in norms, if any, and convey it to the
administration.

The issue of illegal towers was highlighted in
January after the PMC had conducted a drive to recover property tax dues
from telecom service providers in the city. The civic administration
had sent notices to the defaulting telecom companies, who paid Rs 16
crore in dues then.

However, civic activists have questioned
the move. “Structural audits of buildings should be done before
regularizing the towers,” said Vishwas Sahastrabuddhe of the Sajag
Nagrik Manch. He said the weight carrying capacity of the buildings
should be checked. If a building does not seem fit to carry the weight,
the towers should be removed.

“Several surveys have raised
questions about health hazards caused by mobile towers. There are norms
set by various ministries for installing them. They should be strictly
followed. All these factors should be considered before regularizing the
towers,” said Vijay Kumbhar of Surajya Sangharsha Samiti.