The Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association on Tuesday said the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has suspended 566 mobile towers in Delhi, PTI reported. The association said the towers were sealed “despite the fee deposit of Rs 48 crore lying with municipal corporations”.
The association said the MCD’s move would impact the development of telecom infrastructure, and ease of doing business and would also hamper efforts to address the growing data needs of customers. “Suo motu coercive actions on sealing the mobile towers leads to solemn issues such as slow internet speed, network congestion and call drops,” the association’s director general Tilak Raj Dua said.
Dua said the telecom tower industry has been holding discussions with the municipal corporations of Delhi on the implementation of a mediation settlement and the problems faced by the industry for more than eight years.
The telecom industry had challenged the provisions of the Delhi tower policy, 2010, including permission charges of Rs 5 lakh for five years, PTI reported. In January 2017, a mediation settlement was signed by the industry and the municipal corporations on the reference of the Delhi High Court.
“However, even after a year, the mediation settlement has still not been implemented down the line with the municipal corporations and have resulted into the sealing of critical infrastructure amounting to Rs 113 crores approximately and no new permissions have been processed for the installation of telecom infrastructure,” the association said in a statement.
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