Telecom tower radiation lowest in India: Operators

Here’s some good news for those concerned about radiations from telecom towers.
The Centre has fixed the Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR) emission levels below 0.45w/m2, which is one-tenth of the norms (4.5w/m2) fixed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This way India ranks among the countries with lowest emission levels.

This was disclosed at a press conference by Rajan S Mathews, director of Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), in the City on Monday.

The conference was held to allay fears about EMR causing harm to public health.

He said the government adopted the lowest norm considering the fact that Indian urban settings are not zone-wise and installations like schools and hospitals are spread across the geographies.

He rued that news reports keep surfacing about the negative effects of EMR on public health.

Satyanarayana Reddy, Deputy Director General of Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cell, said that although the emission level in India is much below the WHO standard, houses being at the same level of base antenna stations at proximity may be harmful to people.

He said the TERM Cell may look into such cases.

He cautioned people against excess use of mobile phones as it may cause heating.

He cited the example of a youth who spoke over phone for more than seven hours and came to the TERM Cell officials to check whether such a long conversation would cause any harm to him. Reddy recommended use of earphones and bluetooth devices to converse on phone for a longer period to avoid damage to health.

A mini film was screened, in which experts spoke about mobile networks and public health.

The video showed Dr Bhavin Jankharia, radiologist and president of Indian Radiology and Imaging Association, R V Hosur, senior professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and renowned oncologist Dr Siddharth Mukherjee, who were all of the opinion that EMR does not cause harm to living beings.