Hindustan Times 04.02.2010

In Delhi, civic body relaxes its norms

Unlike in the NCR towns, consumers in the Capital won’t have to suffer bad network on their mobile phones.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided not to seal any cell phone towers in the city as of now. Besides, the civic agency has finalised its policy on setting up mobile towers on ground and rooftops.

To be tabled in the MCD’s standing committee meeting next work, the new policy has relaxed the norms for setting up mobile towers to ensure that connectivity is not affected.

The civic agency had admitted that out of 4,532-cell phone towers in the city, 2,517 towers were illegal. Hindustan Times was the first to report on illegal cell phone towers in the city, on September 21.

The MCD commissioner had also tabled a policy on mobile phone towers under which they (towers) could not be set up in residential areas.

However, under the new policy the mobile phone operators will be given an option to set up towers in community centres, municipal or government buildings and commercial buildings. In case this option is not available, they will be able to set up towers in colonies as well.

“The operators will have to get it certified from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India that there are no such commercial or municipal buildings in colonies where they want to set up these towers. Our junior engineer will carry out an inspection after that,” said Meera Aggarwal, member of the committee set up to draft the new policy.

As per the proposed policy, all such towers that aren’t regularised will be given 20 days to shift to another location.

Cell phone tower operators were given time till January 31 to regularize their towers.