The Bombay High Court on Thursday asked the Maharashtra government to disclose in an affidavit its policy for allowing telecom companies to lay down underground optical fibre cables for broadband and mobile connectivity.
The direction was given by a Bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka on a public interest litigation filed by Kalpesh Yadav, general secretary of the Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena, the students wing of the MNS, Pune unit.
The HC asked the state to enumerate its policy in four weeks. The PIL alleged that in some areas of Pune, telecom companies such as Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Tel Ltd, Idea Cellular and Vodafone had allegedly excavated road and laid down cables without paying any licence fees and also without obtaining permission from the state government.
The petitioner alleged that he had learnt through RTI that the companies were unauthorisedly laying down cables in areas such as Ramwadi to Airport Road and Mundwa bypass road in Pune, resulting in loss to public exchequer.
It should be the duty of the state to issue licence for such purpose and collect fees from these telecom companies which earn profits by providing mobile and broadband services to customers, said the PIL. —PTI
