The Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) of Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) is the issuing authority of no-objection certificate to telecom companies. The directorate has issued more than 500 NoCs to different telecom companies which have then illegally installed mobile signal towers on rooftops of many dilapidated plazas.
According to Islamabad Capital Territory by-laws, the ownership rights of rooftops of buildings, having common ownership, shall be the property of all owners of the building jointly, up to 85 per cent according to their share, including the owners of the top floor. The remaining 15 per cent shall be the property of all owners of the top floor jointly, according to their share, in addition to their original shares. The rooftop shall be accessible to all owners’ tenants as agreed jointly. The rooftop shall not be used/owned by the developer/owner or any stakeholder in any case and the developer shall have no ownership rights in this regard.
But, unfortunately, due to shaky implementation of law, the capital has more than 500 mobile signal towers and almost all of them have been illegally installed on the rooftops and no authority has taken the notice of this situation yet.
“The telecom companies get the NoCs from DMA after fulfilling the criteria which includes building structure stability certificate of a building (in a commercial area), NoC from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other formalities,” said DMA Director Shehbaz Tahir Nadeem.
Answering a query, he further said, there were myths that mobile towers causing ‘critical health constraints’ and there was no mature research on it.
“The telecom companies did agreements with the chairman committees of plazas, individual owners of top floors and get registry from the registrar office at Sector F-8, Kathecry. However, according to the law, registrar can’t register with the name of any company, individual, committee chairman as the rooftop is the ownership of every single owner of flats, shop of buildings, said a businessman of Aalay Plaza, Ch Muhammad Shafique Gujjar.
While talking, Blue Area Market Vice President Raja Hamid Mehmood acknowledged that there were many telecom towers illegally installed on rooftops in Blue Area and many were not even paying rent to every owner of the building. “We have just won the elections and working on it. As per Islamabad and Capital Development Authority (CDA) by-laws, the telecom companies have been bound to get every owner in confidence and to pay them,” he concluded.
“Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) is the authority for issuing NoCs to telecom companies for installation of towers in rural areas and DMA for urban areas,” said DMA director.
Reported by this paper, back in June and July 2016, two telecom towers installed on rooftops of commercial markets and near residential area collapsed in the twin cities.
One of the Telco tower, situated in Sector G-9, came apart on June 2 in a torrential rain spell. The second Telco tower fell down near Rawalpindi District Courts on July 18. Fortunately, in both incidents, no one was harmed.
On August 27, the Emergency and Disaster Management (E&DM), MCI wrote a letter to the Pakistan Telecom Authority chairman demanding that it must take stern action against radiation being spread by mobile towers and relocate them as they pose serious health issues to the public at large.
The letter said that mobile towers were causing critical health constraints across Pakistan, especially in the capital. It said that the trend of these towers was responsible for giving birth to ‘billions of complicated diseases like brain tumors, high blood pressure, high sugar, glaucoma etc followed by carcinoma-like homicides’.
The letter further said that it had requested for a policy review, by relocating all such high-grade radiation emitting gadgets away from residential areas, thus assuring life and safety of the innocent residents in every street, sector, and colony of the capital.
Contact could not be made with Registrar Naeem Azam despite several attempts.
