BENGALURU: Residents have been long complaining about the health hazards caused by mobile towers in their vicinity. Issues such as tumours, severe fever and heart problems are some of the issues highlighted by residents. Bhagya P, 59, had been living in Seshadripuram near a law college for 12 years. Having four mobile towers right above her apartment has been a nightmare for her, as she ended up with a tumour in her lung a few months ago.
“We had been contacting people for a long time to get rid of the towers, but no action had been taken. I was down with severe fever for 15 days until we decided to visit the doctor. Multiple tests were done and came back negative. After scanning, there found a fluid in my lung, and after that, a tumour was confirmed,” says Bhagya, who had shifted from Seshadripuram in September.
Earlier this week, new rules in the Karnataka Installation of New Telecommunication Infrastructure Act mandated that it will be compulsory for companies to obtain licences for all mobile towers installed in the state. Moreover, all new towers installed in the city should be at a distance of 50 metres from any school, college, hospital or place of religious worship, according to Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara. Old towers near schools and colleges have to be shifted within three months. At present, the number of mobile towers is 6,766 in Bengaluru alone.
In response to this, Rajan S Mathews, director general for Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), says that this is a draft proposal, and has not been made a law yet. “We will be providing our responses to the government before it is finalised,” he says. “EMF and telecom towers are a central government matter, and hence, states must comply with Centre’s norms regarding tower locations. The Centre had issued a gazette notification in 2016 indicating EMF safety norms for cell towers issued by them are binding to all states. This notification clearly indicated that cell towers cannot be excluded from any location because of EMF. So if the state government adopts the present draft as it is, it will be in violation of the law of the land,” Rajan explains.
In response to a PIL alleging how harmful cell towers are to people’s health, the Karnataka High Court ruled that there is no scientific evidence to show any health hazards from EMF. “We do not believe the draft proposal by the Government of Karnataka is correct or legal when it seeks to limit cell towers from various locations such as schools and hospitals. The EMF safety norms are put in place in such a way that they cover the most sensitive groups, and hence, no exclusion is required,” Rajan said.
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Dr S Manohar, internal medicine at Sakra World Hospital, says that although plenty of research has been done, there is no clear indication as to whether radio frequency waves can cause health issues. “Earlier, the government had introduced a technology to tone down the electromagnetic frequency (EMF) from these towers, which is why we are facing network issues. But with that said, the radiation emitted by the mobile handset increases as it tries to grasp signals. So there is no clear indication - such as smoking causes lung cancer - that can prove that EMF is the cause for tumours,” he says.