From September 1, 2012 onwards the new guidelines will come in to force for the radiations emitting from the telecom towers. The radiations emitting from the telecom towers will come down to 1/10th of the present level.
The recent development has been made amidst concerns related to public health. The new guidelines have mentioned that the handsets to be rolled out from domestic manufacturing units or to be imported by will have reduced absorption capacity.
The minimum distance of the tower with two antennas will be 35 meters from a residential building. Throughout the country there are more than seven lakh towers for mobile phones, of which 95% of them are already compliant with the new emission norms.
Telecom minister Kapil Sibal said that the non compliance of these standards will result in a penalty of Rs. 5 lakh per tower. Sibal added, “Public health comes first. Technology must be embraced but it ultimately must be subject to public health”. On the mobile handsets, the specific absorption rate (SAR) value will now be 1.6 watts/kg measured more than 10 gms of human tissue. But the government has given one year time for tuning the handsets in stock with companies. The minister also said that any new handset which is manufactured must comply with the norm.
