The Thiruvananthapuram city is set to bring about a structural change in its system of providing approval for the installation of Galvanised Iron (GI) poles by various telecom companies.
The civic body has been sustaining revenue losses over the years due to the lack of a system to ascertain the proper number of poles laid by the companies, which have to pay the Corporation an annual rent for each of the poles.
As per the current system, the telecom companies get the approval from the Corporation after submitting an application for a specific number of poles. However, on the ground, this number is often not followed and poles much in excess of the approved numbers are laid across the city. For each GI pole, the companies are supposed to pay the Corporation an amount of ₹750, in addition to ₹1000 rent for the Electronic Display Panels (EDP).
The Corporation is now implementing a system by which the companies have to submit the location plan and unique identification number for each of the poles. A completion plan also has to be submitted. The respective telecom company’s logo and number of the pole has to be displayed on the pole. This will allow the Corporation to get an accurate picture of the poles installed in each locality, and ensure that there is no loss of revenue due to unaccounted poles.
“There are a lot of private players in the scene now, including those who run cable services. We are also looking at the files from the previous years to ensure that all of the installed poles are captured in the system. If this system is followed up, we will have numbered poles everywhere within one year. Those without numbers can be considered as unauthorised and be removed,” said a Corporation official.
The Corporation has also decided to increase the restoration charges for the telephone poles, by increasing the area considered for restoration by 50%. Currently, files regarding telephone poles are maintained across various sections in the Corporation. It has been decided to handle all of this in the revenue section for ease of tracking.
Even though many companies do pay the rents for the poles that they have on records, quite a few others have not paid the annual license fee. The Corporation had to initiate revenue recovery proceedings against a telecom major earlier this year for not paying the rent for its poles since 2017-18 despite multiple reminders.
