Who keeps an eye on mobile towers in Bengaluru?

A TOWERING PROBLEM

Bengaluru: When some health issues troubled the residents of a building in the J P Park area near Mattikere upon which a mobile tower was erected, they correlated it with the tower’s existence.  They unitedly fought against it and got it removed in 2021.

Two years later, in April 2023, a new tower appeared on another building 500 metres away. The residents in this area realised that the building was old and not robust enough to withstand a tower. Moreover, K-RIDE marked a portion of the building for a suburban railway. 

“There is a school and a temple in the area. Rules ban mobile towers from being erected in such areas. On these grounds, we complained to BBMP and finally went to court,” says Chandrashekhara C N, a resident of Gokula.

They found many other discrepancies in the case, including the building’s ownership and license to install the tower. Many violations were also revealed, including the lack of a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) approval, which strengthened the residents’ case. Police complaints were also filed. 

The residents filed a complaint expressing fear about serious health hazards and requesting that BBMP remove the tower.

BBMP officials were prompt enough to respond and remove the structure soon after the complaints. “About Rs 10 lakh worth of items were recovered, and we all thanked the BBMP chief commissioner,” recalls Chandrashekhara.

As a result, the court case did not proceed.

This is one of the rare cases where people got together to fight against illegal mobile towers. There are also cases of builders renting out terraces to mobile towers. Such cases cause disputes between residents and builders when the ground rent is collected exclusively by one party while the entire building bears the structure load, affecting the life of the building.

However, officials can do little in such cases. A BBMP official said such cases depend on the residents’ overall understanding. If there is anything legally wrong with the issue, it can be fought in the courts; otherwise, residents have to bear the consequences on their own.

‘No consolidated data’

Bengaluru has hundreds of mobile towers belonging to various mobile service providers, but consolidated data on legal and illegal buildings is unavailable.

The state government released a fresh draft guideline, Karnataka Installation of New Telecommunication Infrastructure Towers Regulations 2019, for installing mobile towers. This was amended and finalised in January 2022. The final rules asked all the exiting towers to register within six months, i.e., July 2022.

A survey of telecommunication infrastructure towers was to be conducted in Bengaluru within thirty days of notification of these Rules/bylaws. There is an estimation that the number of cell towers may be about 11,000, but no one knows the exact number.

According to an official, the BBMP ward-level officials inspect mobile towers when there are complaints. However, permissions and plan sanctions are granted by the BBMP head office, while the plans are supposed to be sanctioned by the town planning department.

Respective departments must maintain the data. Officials say the data on mobile towers exists at the zonal level. However, central BBMP revenue department officials say no consolidated data is available at the head office, even for property tax purposes.

“They didn’t pay property tax for telecom towers. Law was amended in 2015 to include telecom tower within the definition of “building”. Now the high court has said BBMP can collect property tax from them retrospectively from 2015. We are asking that to be done,” replied Munish Moudgil, Special Commissioner, BBMP Revenue Department, to DH’s query.

“We don’t have exhaustive data. We are asking telecom agencies to pay the property tax directly to us. Once they report and pay, we will have information,” he added.

Rules for mobile towers

Every mobile tower is considered a building, and the service provider is supposed to pay the local municipality a property tax. Other than this, the building or land owners also demand ground rent.

The rules specify many other dos and don’t’s and list of requirements before building a tower.

 Mobile towers cannot be erected on water tanks, lakes and nalas. 

 A distance of 30 metres should be maintained between railway properties and mobile towers, and no-objection certificate by the railways is needed.

 The rules also specify distances from electrical lines based on the transmission voltages.

 Towers should be erected at least 100 metres away from protected monuments, heritage or religious structures.

 Before building a site, a site plan, location plan, and structural stability certificate of the building where the tower would be erected, along with the height of the building, must be provided. Engineering drawings of the tower with specifications, the weight of the tower, and documents related to ownership and lease deeds are compulsory. 

 A no-objection certificate from the Fire Services Department, a certificate by the service provider guaranteeing the electromagnetic radiation levels are within the prescribed limits, and another by the Automotive Research Association of India on the noise and environmental pollution health of the diesel generator should be submitted to the sanctioning authority, in this case, the BBMP.

 A completed mobile tower should have completion certificates—one by the architect, engineer, town planner, or designer and another by the owner. It also needs a fit-for-use certificate.

 The one-time fee for a mobile tower to be paid to BBMP is Rs 1 lakh.

Interestingly, the draft rules of 2019 mentioned minimum distance specifications for towers to be erected near schools, hospitals, and residential areas, but the final guidelines eliminated this part.

Health hazards conundrum

Various studies have shown that elevated levels of electromagnetic radiation can be harmful.

A Study and Mapping of Radiation Levels from Mobile Towers in and Around Bangalore done in 2017 by researchers from Jain University showed elevated levels of radiation around mobile towers in 15 study areas.

Another study before this in 2016 by researchers of Bangalore University, Effects of Mobile Tower Radiations on human health: A case study from Bangalore, showed headache, irritability, nausea, appetite loss, discomfort, sleep disturbance, depression, memory loss, difficulty in concentration and dizziness as the health impacts of mobile tower radiation. 

The study was done near base stations in Gangondahalli, Nagarabhavi, Moodalpalya, Chandra Layout and Guddadahalli. Residents in the area were surveyed for this study.

“The greatest risk is to cell phone tower radiations because of the high exposure to the human head and the great sensitivity of brain tissue and brain processes,” said the study.

However, little is done to check the electromagnetic radiation levels around mobile towers. The Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring  (TERM) Cell of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) conducts yearly checks. Ten of the 320 stations in India that exceeded the radiation level in February 2023 were from Bengaluru.

DH Photo B K Janardhan

A court case involving residents of Cooke Town protesting against a mobile tower installation on health grounds was dismissed in July 2024, as the petitioner citizens could not provide solid proof of health hazard. 

“There is no health hazard due to the installation of the mobile tower and radiation from the mobile tower is within the limit prescribed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP),” said the court while dismissing the case, citing the inability of petitioners to prove the allegations of health impacts and illegality.