The Chennai city police on Monday announced the formation of a core committee headed by Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sanjay Arora to regulate cell phone towers in the city.
The committee comes in the wake of the collapse of a tower atop an apartment complex in Raja Annamalai Puram last week. Representatives of all mobile telecom service providers and agencies involved in the installation of the towers would be in the committee.
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Speaking to The Hindu after a meeting with representatives of telecom service providers at his office here on Monday, Commissioner of Police T. Rajendran said the service providers were not adhering to guidelines pertaining to the installation and maintenance of cell phone towers in the city.
“There are about 8,000 towers in the city and the installation and maintenance has been outsourced by the service providers to private contactors. The contract is for nine years,” he said.
Apart from keeping track of the maintenance schedule of the towers, the core committee would check whether all the guidelines, including the certification that the tower did not pose risk of any radiation, had been followed before the installation, Mr. Rajendran said.
The committee would also act as a liaison between the telecom service providers and the police mainly during investigations into crime cases.
Mr. Rajendran said the meeting on Monday also discussed the need to audit contents of bulk text messages (SMS) and bar them if they are controversial.
Other issues related to mobile number portability, issue of pre-paid SIM cards without valid ID proof and upcoming 3G network were also discussed.
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