Cellular operators to take Noida to court over sealing of telecom towers

The Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have decided to move the court against Noida authorities for sealing of towers in the city without issuing any notice.

According to S C Khanna, secretary general, AUSPI, COAI and AUSPI would approach the Allahabad High Court against Noida authorities. He added there was no policy regarding such measures earlier and the development has come in a sudden move and as they did not want to take any risks they would not like any more towers to be shut down. Khanna was speaking to Telecom Yatra.

In their drive, the authorities sealed around 190 towers in Noida last week, saying that these had been illegally set up, leading to fears of similar measures on another 2,500 illegal towers in the capital. This would adversely affect a huge proportion of the 26 million mobile subscribers in Delhi.

Meanwhile, subscribers in Noida are already reported to be facing poor networks coverage after the sealing. This could lead to similar action from authorities in other states and the crisis could escalate to national proportions.

According to Khanna one argument by Noida authorities was that the towers were built in residential areas. He said that towers were bound to come up in residential areas if the plan was to offer network connections everywhere. He said the location of the towers was done taking into account the RF planning of the network which made certain that towers were built at a certain distance. He added that the towers were legal.

Khanna also said that they had received response from several global organisations that said there were no health hazards from the towers.