'More information on health, safety of mobile phones should be available'

The health and safety aspects of mobile telecommunications have been a major cause for concern and Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Monday said more information about these should be available in public domain.

"We must have adequate information (about mobile telecommunications radiation) available in public domain whether radiation emission is good for the health or bad for the health. Radiation will always be there.

"I am open to take some more issues in the public domain. If it is required to take some more corrective measures, I am quite open for that. But that need for corrective measure must come out of objectivity," Prasad said.

He was addressing the 'Second International Conference - health and safety aspects of mobile telecommunications', organised here by Assocham.

"My mantra to my officers from day one has been to act in a manner that consumer interest is promoted and protected and act in a reasonable and fair manner so that the telecom sector gets good growth. But these objectives have to be reached keeping in mind the health and safety aspects of the people," he added.

The electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation emitted by the mobile towers had been a cause for concern. Many studies and researches have taken place in this issue.

In the next few year, adoption of technologies like 4G, cloud computing, convergence and next generation network will open up several new avenues both from the perspective of industry as well as consumers.

"Keeping these in mind, the government has to play a crucial role, not only to create conducive environment with right mixes of policy interventions that look into health and safety aspects of mobile telecommunications as well," Rakesh Garg, secretary, Department of Telecom (DoT) said.

The DoT since 2008 has been monitoring global developments and has already taken necessary steps and adopted stricter norms for safety from EMF radiation that are emitted from mobile towers and mobile handsets.

"We have been scanning the global developments on this issue and have been periodically reviewing the EMF exposure safe limits," he added.

Based on the recommendations by an inter-ministerial committee, the norms for exposure limit for the radio frequency field from base station emissions in India have been further reduced to 1/10th of the existing limits prescribed by International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.