Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

De­spite a meet­ing with Dig­i­cel over the planned con­struc­tion of a cell tow­er at Debe, res­i­dents are adamant that they will do every­thing pos­si­ble to stop the project. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of Chi­tar Trace Vil­lage group, Ramhit Bhim­s­ingh, said res­i­dents were op­posed to the con­struc­tion of the tow­er be­cause it posed a se­ri­ous risk to life and limb. Bhim­s­ingh said Dig­i­cel of­fi­cials tried to con­vince res­i­dents the tow­er would not af­fect their health. "We showed them re­search which we gath­ered on­line about how dan­ger­ous cell tow­ers are. We do not think that this tow­er should be built so close to our homes," Bhim­s­ingh said.

"We hope that Dig­i­cel will not con­tin­ue with this con­struc­tion be­cause we will not tol­er­ate it at all," Bhim­s­ingh said. Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Prem­c­hand Sookoo said Dig­i­cel had not been grant­ed per­mis­sion to erect a tow­er in Chi­tar Trace. He said the com­pa­ny did not hold con­sul­ta­tions with the res­i­dents but pro­ceed­ed to clear the land, trig­ger­ing protests.

Dig­i­cel's com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­rec­tor Pen­ny Gomez said Dig­i­cel had ob­tained a Non Ob­jec­tion Cer­tifi­cate from the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T and was in the process of do­ing a re­ten­tion ap­pli­ca­tion from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning. She sad dis­cus­sions were on­go­ing with res­i­dents. Gomez al­so said Dig­i­cel did not need ap­proval from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to build the tow­er.