Minister of state (independent charge) for communications Manoj Sinha, while delivering the inaugural address at the launch of Tarang Sanchar (tarangsanchar.gov.in), said that the portal will definitely help in clearing myths and misconception of public about mobile towers and emissions from them.

 

Sinha said that the portal empowers any common person to know, at the convenience of a mouse click, about towers working in a particular locality and whether they are compliant to the EMF emission norms defined by the government.

 

Telecom secretary PK Pujari said that the government is fully committed to protect the health of its citizens. To ensure the same, DoT has prescribed standards for electromagnetic emissions from mobile towers that are ten times stricter than the international standards prescribed by international commission on non-ionizing radiation protection (ICNIRP) and recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). 

 

The Indian government has taken steps to ensure that telecommunications service providers (TSPs) strictly adhere to these prescribed norms. Though there is no scientific evidence of any health concerns from low power mobile base transceiver station, a need was felt to educate the citizens about EMF emissions from mobile towers and status of their compliances.

 

The EMF Portal is designed to provide a public interface where an easy map-based search feature has been provided for viewing the mobile towers in vicinity of any locality. By the click of a button, information on EMF compliance status of mobile towers can be accessed. Detailed information about any tower site, if requested, will be sent on email to the users. Additionally, any person can request for EMF emission measurement at a location by paying a nominal fee of Rs 4,000 online.  The tests will be conducted by the local Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) filed unit of DoT and the test report will be provided to the person who makes the request. 

 

Tarang Sanchar portal has the complete collated technical details of over 14.5 lakh base stations (BTSs) spread across the country of all technologies (2G, 3G, 4G etc.) and of all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs).