Schools, colleges and hospitals in India should scrap the policy of banning cellphone towers on top or within 100 metres.

Michael Repacholi, who is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Information Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications, University of Rome, and who during an earlier stint with the World Health Organisation (WHO) initiated the International EMF Project, asserted to newspersons that there is no scientific evidence of cellphones causing cancer or any other health hazards. “Activists are acting on suspicion rather than facts and no way are cellphones or towers can cause health hazards,” Repacholi told Business Line .

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). This, in turn, has alarmed citizens in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore who have pressured local authorities to take drastic measures against cellphone towers.

Accordingly, earlier this week the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in a revised a draft policy insisted on retaining the ban on installation of antennae on the top, within 100 metres of educational institutions, hospitals, children’s correction homes, senior citizens’ homes and hostels or orphanage buildings for the children.

This is in line with the guidelines issued by the Department of Telecommunications, the draft added.

Also, many residential places in Bangalore are asking mobile towers to be taken off from the premises and has a similar rule with regards to schools, colleges and hospitals. The industry is clearly ruffled with these developments. “Studies show no indication that environmental exposure from base stations increases the risk of cancer or any other disease,” said Repacholi. ICNIRP is an international commission specialised in non-ionizing radiation protection.

Many differ However, not everybody agrees. Over 100 scientists and physicians at Boston, Harvard and other universities have called cell phone towers a radiation hazard and some have linked it to cancer. “Mobile phone held against the head raises the temperature by less than 0.1 per cent and that is not enough to produce cancer,” said Repacholi. According to Vasant Natarajan, a professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, radiation emitted by a tower is less than a microwave oven.

Recently, WHO said that mobile phones are low-powered radio frequency transmitters, operating at frequencies between 450 and 2700 MHz with peak powers in the range of 0.1 to 2 watts. The power (and hence the radiofrequency exposure to a user) falls off rapidly with increasing distance from the handset, the report added.

venkatesh.ganesh@thehindu.co.in

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