NEW DELHI: The Government on Friday said that it has not only put stringent norms over Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) emissions norms from mobile towers but has also set a well-structured process and mechanism in place to make the Telecommunication Service Providers strictly adhere to limits.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha , Minister of State for Communication Manoj Sinha said that, all the new Base Transceiver Stations(BTS) start functioning commercially only after adhering to the set norms and furbishing certificates to the relevant Telecom Enforcement Resources and Monitoring’s(TERM) field office of the Department of Telecommunication(DoT).
In case of any EMF norms violation by the BTS site, a penalty of Rs 10 lakh per BTS site is imposed along with shutting down of the concerned site.
Mr Sinha also said that, in accordance with the World Health Organisation(WHO) reviews, the EMF exposures below the recommended limits as per International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection’s (ICNIRP) international guidelines do not have any known consequence to human health.
” In India, the norms for exposure limits for the Radio Frequency Field(Base Station Emissions) are already ten times more stringent than the safe limits prescribed by ICNIRP and recommended by WHO”, he said.
This further averts the need for having separate norms in residential localities for installation of the cell phone towers, he added.