Indian Firm to Buy Equipment for BTRC

The BTRC has finally awarded a tender to an Indian company to purchase tools to conduct a risk assessment on the radiation emitted by the telecom operators’ base transceiver stations or popularly known as mobile towers. Fastech Telecommunication (India) Pvt Ltd will supply the equipment—including two monitoring vehicles—worth around Tk 2.90 crore. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission will sign a deal with the Indian company at a programme tomorrow to purchase the equipment.

The initiative has been taken in response to a petition over such radiation filed by a rights body in 2012. The High Court in March last year told BTRC to take preventive measures, if necessary.

Following another High Court order, the health ministry later formed an expert committee which looked into some Dhaka towers and found the radiation harmful to public health.

The radiation measurements will help the BTRC to formulate the future regulatory guidelines for the telecom towers, said a BTRC official of the engineering and operation wing.

Fastech has been asked to deposit Tk 29.31 lakh as a performance bond before the signing of the deal, said a BTRC official related to the issue. – The Daily Star