Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been losing out of Rs 100 crore anually that it should get from cell towers. The civic body has been collecting property tax of just 500 cell towers when there are more than 6,000 towers across the city. Moreover, only three of 14 telecom companies that own cell towers in the city are paying any tax at all. City Mayor Bonthu Rammohan held a review meeting with revenue officials recently and instructed them to collect property tax from all the telecom companies that have cell towers across the city.
The civic body has accorded permission to Indus Towers Limited to maintain 2,455 cell towers, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (819), Viom Networks (669), Reliance Communication Limited (604), Bharthi Airtel Limited (4), BSNL-HTD (295), Chennai Network Infrastructure Limited (196), ATC Telecom Tower (188), GTL Infra-structure (113), Tower Vision (74), Ascend Telecom Infrastructure (69), Idea Cellular (11), Sauravva Towers (P) Ltd and Vodafone South Limited one each.
It recently gave permission to erect about 650 cell towers to various telecom companies. Out of the 14 telecom companies only three — Indus Towers, ATC Telecom Tower, and Idea Cellular Limited — have been paying property tax on a regular basis. Even these firms pay just Rs 1.73 crore annually when they should pay Rs 4.82 crore. Highly placed sources in the corporation say that the telecom companies have taken advantage of loopholes in the Government Order 96, dated August 5, 2015 which provides for telecom companies to erect cell towers first and seek permission from the civic body later.
Queried about this, a senior revenue official, requesting anonymity, told Deccan Chronicle that the corporation has been collecting property tax according to a Gazette notification re-leased during the financial year 2007-08. The official said that several telecom companies have erected cell towers according to their will and have brought stay orders from various courts in order to evade the property tax.
The official also said that telecom companies have been paying a mere 0.1 per cent property tax annually. “If all cell towers are brought under property tax and tax levied according to current value, the corporation would generate more than Rs 100 crore annually,” the official claimed. The GHMC official further said that the corporation has no authority to revise the tax rates on cell towers as that would be up to the state government. “The GHMC has been collecting tax of a mere Rs 12 per sq ft in highly developed areas in the west zone, where there are the maximum number of high rise buildings. The tax rates can be revised to Rs 40 to Rs 50 in highly developed areas in central and west zones,” he said.
GHMC plans towers at parks, public spots:
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) plans to erect cell towers in parks, vacant lands in clear violation of the GO 96. According to this government order, dated August 5, 2015, the state government has banned the erection of cell towers in all public places. The government’s decision was taken in order to safeguard public health, since there is some evidence that radiation from cell towers can be harmful, especially to children and the elderly.
Turning a blind eye to the GO, City Mayor Bonthu Rammohan, during a review meeting recently, told GHMC revenue officials to chalk out plans to erect cell towers in 1,300 community halls, 600 parks and 3,000 vacant lands. A GHMC official told this newspaper that radiation emission from cell towers has been regulated by the department of telecommunications (DoT) and that if any complaint of radiation is brought to the notice of the GHMC, it will be referred to the telecom enforcement resource and monitoring (TERM) of DoT.
He said that there are around 90 lakh cell phones in the city and it will be difficult to provide quality signals with fewer cell towers. He said that the GHMC has already brought this probem to the notice of the state government and it would be resolved soon.
