The Municipal Corporation of Delhi began sealing illegal telecom towers in Delhi following expiry of deadline last Friday for the operators to apply for consideration of all illegal towers.

The MCD resumed the drive by sealing 24 telecom towers.

The civic body had given mobile phone operators a month's time to get their illegal towers regularised by paying a regularisation fee of Rs.5 lakh as stipulated under the new policy that came into effect in April. However, mobile phone operators have been protesting against the steep increase in regularisation fee from Rs.1 lakh earlier to Rs. 5 lakh now.

The areas where towers were sealed on Wednesday include Chittaranjan Park, Govindpuri, Bhogal, Kalkaji, Anand Niketan, Satya Niketan and Shahpur Jat among others. Sealing action could not be carried out in some of the other zones as police force was not available.

To resolve the impasse, Delhi Mayor Prithvi Raj Sawhney had called a meeting of civic body officials and mobile phone operators on Wednesday. However, the meeting was not successful in persuading the telecom operators to pay up the hiked fee.