No apparent health effects due to radiation by mobile towers

Kolkata, Jan 21: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) experts have claimed that radiation from electro-magnetic fields (EMF) of mobile towers does not appear to have "adverse health effects" either on adults or on children in the country.

"A number of judgements delivered by the High Courts in Gujarat, Kerala, Allahabad, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh have ruled that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that EMF radiation emitted from mobile towers has adverse effects on health. Thus, they cannot potentially harm humans," TRAI Advisor (B&CS) Agneshwar Sen said.

The emission levels in the country are kept at 1/10th of the global standards recommended by International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and recognised by the World Health Organisation, the experts said during an interactive session on Effects of EMF Radiation on Human Health here on Monday.

"The EMF penalty norm that has been set by the Department of Telecom (DoT) as on November 2013 levies a penalty of Rs 10 lakh per tower site per telecom service provider if they fail to comply with the set standards," TRAI Principal Advisor Suresh Kumar Gupta said.

"TRAI and DoT have implemented stringent emission norms that ensure no adverse effects on human health from mobile tower emissions," he said.

The Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cell is mandated to test the level of EMF radiations of 10 per cent of the total number of base stations and roof top towers per year.

In West Bengal Circle, such violation was observed only at Siliguri's Prakesh Nagar which was rectified by increasing the height of tower, its officer Supriyo Dutta said.

TRAI, Gupta said, has recommended merger of acquisitions and spectrum sharing to provide quality service to the continuously expanding figures of almost one billion mobile subscribers in the country.

"This is because the need for more and more towers and quality infrastructure is increasing exponentially in the present age of high demand for data and mobile Internet service," he added.

Sen said the dearth of adequate number of mobile towers was one of the reasons for deteriorating quality of mobile services in the country.

A number of state government officials, city municipal bodies, resident welfare associations, NGOs, consumer fora, builders, academicians and telecom service providers participated in the interactive session held in the city.

PTI