No health hazards from mobile tower radiation : Govt

Dismissing concerns over radiation remitted from mobile towers, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Tuesday said studies so far have not revealed any health hazards.

Claiming that prescribed limits for radiation emissions in India are more stringent than global norms, the Minister said the Supreme Court order in this regard is only interim and not final.

The Minister was reacting to the recent Supreme Court order, where the court had asked a BSNL mobile tower in Gwalior to be shut down after a petitioner claimed the radiation from the tower had given him cancer.

Though the court order is expected to intensify ongoing deliberations on the impact of radiation from mobile phone towers on health, the Minister told reporters on the sidelines of a industry body CII event here that call drops situation has improved for the past six months. The telecom industry and government working jointly to address the call drop problems, the Minister added.

The Minister also said the Department of Telecom has been taking number of steps to address the call drops problem and telecom service providers have installed about 2,12,917 additional BTSs (Base Transceiver Stations) across the country during the period from June 2016 to February 2017, he said.

Earlier, the telecom industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) had appealed to the public "not to panic" about the Apex Court order on tower radiation.

“The industry appeals to the citizens and the public to not panic and read the interim order in its entirety. There are four EMF (Electric and magnetic fields)  related cases which have been clubbed together. The interim SC order relates to only one of them whereas cell towers included in the other cases were left untouched," said Rajan S Mathews, Director General of COAI had said.

"Citizens have no reason to panic as mobile towers emit low level radiation, which is within the prescribed DoT, government of India, norms which makes mobile towers completely safe," he said.