Tall and unhealthy

Tall and unhealthy

DoT (Department of Telecommunications) must come down heavily on mobile phone towers violating radiation limits.
India has over a 100 crore mobile phone subscribers and over 12 lakh mobile phone towers. As more subscribers progress to smart phones ¬ using data and internet to do business, get social and participate in governance ¬ India will need more mobile phone towers. But there are also pressing concerns about harmful radiation from these towers. In a precedent-setting case, responding to the complaint of cancer-stricken Harish Chand Tiwari of Gwalior that a BSNL tower illegally installed on a neighbouring rooftop had exposed him to harmful radiation, a Supreme Court bench has ordered this tower deactivated within a week. Now government agencies must reassure the public that the lakhs of other towers are not a health hazard.
WHO classified radiation from mobile telephones as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” in 2011, but a causal relationship is very far from established. Some experts point out that cancer rates have hardly skyrocketed on trend with mobile phones or towers. On the science side, there are challenges of data availability over time periods longer than 15 years.
Awaiting more unambiguous medical assessments, WHO and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection have used available scientific evidence to provide exposure limit guidelines, based on which DoT has set up safety norms in India.
Last year DoT told SC that it had tested 3.3 lakh towers, found only 212 exceeding the radiation limits, and collected Rs 10 crore as penalty .But in the wake of even MPs voicing suspicions that mobile towers in India are emitting many times higher radiation than global norms, DoT needs to do a much more rigorous job of monitoring the towers, harshly penalising those operators who violate radiation norms irrespective of whether they are privately or publicly owned, and reassuring the public that its health is not being endangered. Already a “not in my backyard” outlook has caused a tower shortage and therefore a call-drop hornets' nest in Indian cities. This problem will only get worse unless citizens are reassured that government is making sure all mobile phone towers, including those operated by BSNL, are being lawful.
It would really help to put into the public domain a national data base of all the mobile phone towers and their emission levels. Meanwhile, any RWA concerned about a tower in its neighbourhood should be given prompt response and reassurance from DoT's monitoring cell.