DoT gives radiation clean chit to mobile towers in Bihar

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has given a clean chit from radiation point of view to over 1 lakh mobile towers in Bihar.

Of the 34% (34,082) mobile towers the DoT had inspected, all conformed to the government’s radiation norms, said Girijesh Kumar Mishra, senior deputy director general (DDG), department of telecom, Bihar Licensed Service Area (LSA), on Monday.

The DoT prescribed maximum limit of power density is 1 Watt per meter square.

Sharing these figures, Mishra said there were certain misconceptions related to the radiation of mobile towers among the public, who were reluctant to allow installation.

“Some people believe that tower radiation harms health. However, this radiation is non-ionizing. Based on scientific facts, it has been found that it does not have any adverse effect on human health,” said Mishra.

Non-ionizing radiations are those having low to medium frequency (3 kiloHertz to 300 Gega Hz), like sunlight, radio and microwave signals. On the contrary, ionizing radiations are those like X-ray, gamma rays, having high electromagnetic spectrum frequency in the range of 300 Pico Hz to 30 Exa Hz, said BM Patel, director (compliance), DoT, Bihar LSA.

Mishra said the government of India had endorsed tower radiation level ten times more stringent as compared to the international standards prescribed by the WHO and the International Commission for Non-ionizing Radiation & Protection (ICNIRP).

The senior DDG regretted that that the myth about radiation from mobile towers posing health hazards had affected the execution timeline of many projects in the state.

“The success of many ambitious projects, such as Digital India, Smart Cities, National Broadband Mission and others, depend on the availability of mobile towers. The country is going to expand 5G technology in a big way soon. It is anticipated that the 5G rollout will require a qualitative increase in the number of telecom towers. In such circumstances, it has become extremely imperative to dispel the myths and misconceptions related to towers and their radiation,” added Mishra.

Of the over 1 lakh base transceiver station (BTS), which connects the mobile device to the network, in Bihar, Reliance Jio accounts for around 49,000, Airtel 32,300, Vodafone and Idea 15,320 and BSNL 4,300, said Patel.

Of these, as many as 10,556 BTS are in Patna district alone, while the rest are distributed among the 37 remaining districts of Bihar. The inequitable distribution of mobile towers is not a happy situation in the state, felt telecom officials. Hindustan Times