The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has allayed fears over the health hazards of electromagnetic radiation (EMR).
COAI, along with International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), Vasant Natarajan, a professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, have debunked ‘myths’ around hazards as a result of radiation emitted by cellphone towers in the country. “Radiation emitted by the Sun is thousand times stronger than ones emitted by a tower and even less than a microwave owen,” said Natarajan.
Human Rights Commissions along with residents in Mumbai, Bangalore and others are up in arms against tower operators and are not renewing annual leases of telecom operators to put up towers on top of buildings. India follows strict norms laid down by the Government regarding EMR, said Natarajan.
Vikram Tiwathia, Associate Director General of COAI, feels that there is no proof whatsoever that radiation caused by using cellphones result in cancer despite the Environment Ministry issuing an advisory to the Department of Telecom that norms were being violated in Delhi, where multiple towers are seen within every kilometre.
They point to studies like the ones conducted in January 2011, wherein experts from IIT Madras, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology, Chennai (CEWIT), while carrying out measurements on the electromagnetic radiation at over 180 locations in New Delhi found that in all circumstances, the ‘cumulative measurements’ were well below the compliance limit set by the ICNIRP adopted by the Government for the telecom sector, bringing it at par with the international safety standards.
The type of exposure in the 900 MHz frequency (measured in W/m2) was 4.5 and in the 1800 MHz frequency was 9. Currently, India with 680 million cellphone subscribers and about a billion handsets is supported by 250,000 cellphone towers consuming 3-5 kilowatts power depending on the number of operators using the tower.
However, not everybody agrees with this study. Recently, over 100 scientists and physicians at Boston and Harvard universities schools of public health have called cell phone towers a radiation hazard. Tel Aviv University compared 622 residents who lived within 350 metres of a cellphone tower with 1222 control patients who lived further away. They found 8 cancer cases in the group affected by the cell tower. The US standard for cell site radiation is 580-1000 microwatts per square centimetre.