City faces radiation risk

HYDERABAD: The city, with 3,433 cell towers, faces radiation hazard and the mobile phone companies should be made to ensure people's safety, MIM corporator Mohammed Wajahat Ali Khan has said.Speaking at the municipal corporation council meeting on Saturday, he said Circle 3 had the highest number of 428 towers, followed by Circle 18 with 324.Mayor Mohammed Majid Hussain assured to look into the issue and the suggestion made by some corporators for adoption of the latest technology for cell phone towers, as in some foreign countries, which posed minimal risk to people living nearby.3,000 MUSI ENCROACHMENTS: There are over 3,000 encroachments along Musi river, municipal commissioner MT Krishna Babu said when Amjedullah Khan of MIM sought information on unauthorised structures.He blamed large-scale corruption by town planning officials for shrinking open spaces in the twin cities and complained that despite repeated requests from his side, GHMC did not demolish the illegal structures in his ward.The commissioner explained that the corporation, with just 74 officers to man a population of 80 lakh over an area of 625 sq.km of area, was finding it a Herculean task to keep track of every encroachment.The Mayor asked the commissioner to take up demolition of such illegal structures as soon as possible on a priority basis.2,300 HOARDINGS:Alleging that over 2,300 hoardings and a number of signboards and small advertisement boards sprang up all over the city, several corporators demanded immediate removal of the unauthorised structures and action against the offenders.Commissioner MT Krishna Babu said in his reply that over 463 illegal structures had been removed and 30-odd structures remained to be removed.Apart from the private companies' hoardings, a dozen or more hoardings were erected for promoting government- sponsored programmes like AIDS awareness.MIM MLC Amin-ul- Hassan Jafri said that if the government put up hoardings, it would encourage private players also to flout the norms.