SHILLONG: The East Khasi Hills District Administration has directed the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to shut down mobile towers which fail to comply with the State Building Bye Laws and other relevant rules of the Government.
Informing this here on Wednesday, East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal said that a directive in this regard was issued to MUDA two weeks ago even as show cause notices were sent to various cellular service providers few months ago.
“But none of the service providers replied to my show cause notice since they do not have any relevant documents to indicate they have obtained the necessary permission from the concerned authorities for erecting the mobile towers,” Goyal said.
The Deputy Commissioner said that there are at least eight mobile towers erected on roof tops of buildings in the city which are in complete violation of the building bye laws.
“I am sure that these mobile towers would be shut down within the next few days,” he said.
When asked about the mobile towers installed near schools, hospitals and immediate vicinity of congested areas, he said that necessary action would be taken to rectify the same.
It may be mentioned that a local advocate, Sankar Prasad Gupta, had filed a PIL in the High Court of Meghalaya against irregular installation of mobile towers in Shillong in gross violation of the guidelines of the Department of Telecommunication and Information Technology.
Following the PIL, a bench of Chief Justice PC Pant and Justice SR Sen on December 9 directed the Chief Secretary, the East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner, the Ministry of Communication, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Controller of Communication, CTO Building, Reliance Telecommunication Limited, Bharati Hexagon Limited (Airtel), Dishnet Communication Limited (Aircel), BSNL, Idea Cellular Limited and Vodafone Disk link Limited to file affidavits before the court in this regard.
