Bengaluru has 10,000 mobile towers, but only 300 are registered!

Bengaluru: Many telecom operators including Aircel, Vodafone and Idea have not made disclosures about the actual number of mobile towers in the city, thereby depriving BBMP crores of revenue, said M.K. Gunashekar, Chairman, BBMP standing committee on Taxation and Finance.

He stated that there are over 10,000 mobile towers in the city of which hardly 300 have been registered. He gave 15 days ultimatum for the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) network to get the rest registered with BBMP. 

Addressing media persons on Wednesday, Gunashekar warned that if the OFC operators fail to get the towers registered, they will be deemed unauthorised and removed with immediate effect. 

Reliance, Jio and Indus towers too had not disclosed the towers they had erected. After we served notices, Jio came up and declared their towers. According to New Telecom Infrastructure Tower Regulation, they all are supposed to pay taxes, he said.

When representatives of Indus Towers complained in the meeting that they were not sent any communication and objected removal of towers as per DoT circular of 2005 and cited a court stay against removal of any towers, Gunashekhar clarified that BBMP will restrict itself to the provisions of KMC Act 1976. He added that any circular in contravention to the Act would not be accepted.

He even warned the OFC network operators that they were taking permission to lay OFCs for say 300-500 metres but were ultimately digging up the entire road including the newly added one without having valid permission. He demanded such OFCs to declare and pay the actual money to BBMP else face action.

When OFC Agencies requested Gunashekar to review OFC laying charges for TenderSURE roads, he said rates are finalised and cannot be changed.