In a bid to create awareness about emissions from cell phone towers, the government is planning to soon launch an online portal, which will feature information about every mobile phone tower in the country. The national electromagnetic field (EMF) emission portal, already being developed by the telecom department, will provide details about every cell tower in the country by location and whether it is compliant or not compliant.
"The industry and the department of telecommunications (DoT) are working on a website that will list every cell tower in the country by location and whether it is compliant or not compliant. It's in beta testing mode and we will take another two months to complete the testing," Mr. Rajan S Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India ( COAI) is quoted as saying.
According to Mr. Mathews, local operators will be responsible for uploading information in the database, which will be verified by the telecom department. It's notable the government is already testing the platform in some states including Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.
The COAI director general hopes the new platform will help debunk myths about emissions from cell phone towers. He also pointed out a WHO report published in 2009 that says there's no evidence that weak signals from cell phone towers have negative health impact.
The Indian government has taken some serious efforts to educate people about the mobile phone radiations. It has already made it mandatory for smartphone companies to provide SAR value on handsets.
Source: TOI