Court orders removal of mobile phone towers in Hyderabad

Deputy commissioner ordered to remove towers from densely populated areas

HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered the removal of mobile phone towers from densely populated areas of Hyderabad on a plea citing its environmental hazards. A bench, comprising justices Salahuddin Panhwar and Muhammad Iqbal Mehar, gave a month's time to the district administration to implement the order.

"The deputy commissioner of Hyderabad shall ensure that all mobile companies' towers in thickly populated areas of Hyderabad are removed within one month," reads the order, which was given on a petition filed by two residents of Latifabad, Subhani Jan Pasha and Mohammad Naeem.

Advocate Abdul Wahid Khan, the petitioners' counsel, petitioned the court seeking uprooting of a tower in Latifabad's Unit 9 because the area is a katchi abadi.



"... all houses are attached with each other whereas there is no extra street for conveyance for public," he said. He claimed that the base transceiver station (BTS) tower in question was installed in 2015 without the approval of the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The BTS tower is a telecommunication machine that facilitates wireless communication between the service user and the network. "On December 28, 2015, the petitioners served a legal notice to the company while on April 1, 2016, they complained to Sepa. On July 12, 2016, they also filed a complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)," he informed the court, lamenting that the complaints remain unheard.

The lawyer also blamed the district administration and Hyderabad Municipal Corporation for failing to take action despite their complaints. Hundreds of towers have sprung up in Hyderabad but the exact number is not known. The deputy commissioner did not respond to the queries.

The regional director of Sepa, Munir Ahmed Abbassi said the mobile phone service providing companies are stipulated to obtain the initial environmental examination approval from the agency. "But there is no approval obtained for any of these towers [in Hyderabad region]," he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2016.