Councillors blame BBMP officials for revenue loss on OFC

Does the Karnataka High Court have to intervene for the civic body to act on OFCs, just like it did in case of flexes and other forms of banned plastic? Jayamahal councillor N.K. Gunashekar raised this question in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council on Monday, accusing civic officials of being hand-in-glove with the telecom companies.

Demanding a white paper on optic fibre cables (OFC), Mr. Gunashekar, speaking when the council was discussing star questions raised in 2015, accused the civic body of not capitalising on a huge revenue source. He said in 2008, the BBMP had claimed that 38 different telecom companies had laid OFCs. Later, this number came down to 23.

“However, in the response given to the question I raised, BBMP officials have given details of cables laid by nine telecom companies. There is no data on cases filed and action taken against illegal OFCs,” he said and added that the civic body and State government had met representatives of various telecom companies and urged them to declare the extent of cables laid.

“However, very few companies have complied. The BBMP commissioner should not just file police cases against telecom companies, but also against civic officials for their inaction against illegal cables,” he said.

Mobile towers

Mr. Gunashekar said though there were an estimated 10,000 mobile towers in the city, the companies had declared only 6,766. The civic body had fixed a one-time fee of ₹50,000 per tower. He sought to know if the BBMP officials had even attempted to collect the same.

Several councillors, including Opposition Leader Padmanabha Reddy, pointed out that though TenderSURE roads have underground ducts, there were many overhead cables that are bunched around tree tops and electricity poles. The low-hanging cables pose a danger to both motorists and pedestrians alike. He alleged that officials had provided wrong information to the council by claiming that ₹276 crore had been collected from telecom companies between 2013 and 2016. He suggested that the BBMP form a committee to study the OFC policy of other city corporations and improve revenue from this source.

Mayor R. Sampath Raj said a committee would be constituted to study the OFC policy and rates levied by other city corporations in the country.

Hoardings

Mr. Reddy suggested that the civic body should ban all advertisement hoardings and make Bengaluru a hoarding-free city. Earlier reports had suggested that the city had the potential to garner ₹300 crore revenue from this source. In 2016, the State government had also ordered a thorough investigation about the loss of revenue. He sought to know why no action had been initiated against BBMP officials who had failed to improve the civic body’s advertisement revenue.