It’s probably best to not ignore the city fathers in Ludhiana, India. It seems that two tower companies that failed to respond to “civic body notices” from the municipal corporation and have had power cut off to 16 towers early yesterday. And, in 24 or 48 hours, power in the back up batteries will fizzle out. (Ludhiana is a district in the Indian state of Punjab, and is the largest city north of New Delhi. It is the largest city in the state, with an estimated population of 1,693,653 as of the 2011 census.)
Ghanshyam Thori, Additional Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, told TribuneIndia.com, “We have no other option as the two companies, VIOM and Indus Towers, have failed to provide the basic information about their towers. So, we cut the power connections and sealed eight towers of VIOM and as many of Indus Towers. We don’t want to disrupt the telecommunication services but the company officials are not paying heed to our repeated notices. We got feedback from Airtel and Aster Infrastructures and they are ready to pay the dues.”
Ludhiana is first collecting information from tower operators to build a database and use it to then issue fee notices, the Tribune reports. Earlier this month, the MC as it is called, sealed 32 towers to press the companies to pay their dues. Apparently, the city has a lot to learn – about their tower inventory. Tribune reports that “the MC officials are not aware of the total number of towers installed in the city. They have a record of only 300 towers while there are more than 700 towers installed within the MC limits.”
“We are developing a tower management system software, which will have a complete database of towers. We will update all details about the towers and it will become easy to collect the annual fee from the tower companies,” said Thori.
Reader Interactions