Bhaskar Jadhav, the Minister of state for Urban Development, on April 2, 2013 said that about 1,830 out of 3,705 mobile towers in the city of Mumbai were unauthorised. The towers have received permission from the Department of Telecom, but not from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
A survey was conducted by the civic body on the mobile towers in the city in the year 2011. Jadhav responded to a calling attention motion by MLC Prakash Binsale and assured that action will be taken against the officials of the BMC, who allowed to towers to be constructed.
Repeated complaints were made to take action against the illegal mobile towers, after which Jadhav assured that the electricity supply to the illegal towers would be announced. The minister also announced in the house that the policy which was framed by the centre would be used as a guideline for the state policy.
The guidelines says that there must be space between two towers and 45 meters between four towers. The Telecom companies started approaching the Bombay High Court and received a stay order in October 2011, after the BMC started taking action against the towers. Jadhav admitted that the BMC officials were responsible for this and the several illegal towers did not come up overnight.
