BCC asks for removal or tax

Barisal City Corporation has served notices on the city's building owners to remove 137 mobile phone towers from the rooftops or pay taxes for those.

Farid Hosen Sikdar, chief of the advertisement section of BCC, said they initiated the move as the LGRD ministry in a gazette notification dated March 15 asked them to impose taxes on rooftop towers.

According to the gazette, Tk 1.5 lakh has to be paid yearly for a tower within the height of five metres, Tk 2.5 lakh for a 6-10 metre tower, Tk 3.75 lakh for an 11-15 metre tower, and Tk 5 lakh for a tower above 15 metres.

BCC sent the notice to 137 building owners and six mobile phone operators on June 18. However, officials of the six companies and some building owners asked for two weeks' time after meeting with the mayor on Sunday.

The notice recipients said the mobile phone companies would talk to the ministry about the "excessive" rates of tax fixed in this regard.

Ranjit Kumar Das, chief executive officer of BCC, said if the tax could be collected, it would add Tk 5 crore to the annual income of BCC.

BCC sources said there were 162 rooftop towers in Barisal Metropolitan area including 62 of Grameen Phone, 42 of Banglalink, 24 of Airtel, 16 of Warid, eight of Teletalk, five of Citycell, and five of Jubok and National Phone.

Out of those 137 are located in the city corporation area.

The towers were set up through bilateral contracts between the house owners and telecom operators.

Sukumar Das, director of the Department of Environment in Barisal, said the DoE already stopped giving no-objection certificate in this regard. The DoE will assist BCC if the later starts mobile court drives against rooftop towers, he added.

Earlier, the city residents and health and environment activists demanded removal of those towers citing the risks during natural calamities like earthquake and storm and health hazards caused by their electro-magnetic radiations.