Amid growing concerns about the health hazards due to radiation from mobile telecom towers, the communications ministry is looking at ways to develop an alternative technology whereby dependence mobile towers can be brought down and these towers can eventually be phased out.
A draft proposal has been prepared for discussions among the ministries concerned.
However, operators are not happy with this development. According to them, if the Telecom Commission, the policy-making arm of the communications ministry, decides in favour of a phased replacement of mobile towers, it could increase operators’ cost of operations. The additional burden, in turn, may be passed on to customers.
Tilak Raj Dua, director-general of Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association notified that the tower industry, however, feels such measures will only deteriorate the quality of voice and data. He further said that in- building solutions are complementary and it is parallel to towers; replacing them is not the solution.
The fight over this issue may have an intervention by the telecom regulator soon. Sources in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the issue is of concern to the larger public and as a regulator, Trai can suggest measures suo-motu.
By Baishakhi Dutta
