600 mobile towers ‘missing’ across TN; probe under way

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu police seem to be on their toes while probing a case of over 600 ‘missing’ mobile phone towers and its accessories during the lockdown period. Each missing tower is estimated to be worth over Rs 30 lakh.

The incident came to light recently when GTL Infrastructure Limited, the company which set up the mobile phone towers – found one in Chennimalai in Erode missing. They lodged a complaint last week and later found that around

600 mobile phone towers had gone missing in Tamil Nadu during the COVID lockdown.

SK Kosalkumar, from GTL Infrastructure Ltd, in his complaint with the Chennimalai police station said that apart from the 40 metre high tower, diesel generator, power plant, stabilizers, battery bank and air conditioner were also missing from site in Pallakattu thottam. “Complaints have been lodged in every other police station in the city about the missing towers,” another company staffer said. The towers got stolen as they had not been under surveillance. They were used by a private service provider which stopped its service owing to huge losses in 2018. Sources said that when these mobile towers were not in operation, firm executives could not visit the sites during the COVID period to carry out maintenance. In the second week of June, company officials found the tower missing in Chennimalai and later during a survey across the state, discovered that 600 towers had vanished.

The company officials believe that a gang took advantage of the shutdown period and stole the towers that were not in use.