Telecom min blames people obstructing mobile tower installation for call drops

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Thursday blamed people who obstruct installation of mobile towers due to fear of ill-effect of radiation for call drops.

"We need to think about out technical solution for this (call drops). It does not matter whatever we may do -- launch Tarang Sanchar portal, organise seminar, create awareness that EMF radiation lead to no disease but there are some people who are involved in proving this notion wrong," Sinha said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his review Wednesday of progress made by the telecom ministry is learnt to have raised issue of call drops and asked for immediate action.

Sinha was speaking to reporters after releasing compendium of all the circulars, guidelines and policy directives issued by different wings of the telecom department.

"Everyone knows that for good connectivity you need good infrastructure and for that towers and BTS (base tower stations) are required but there are some people who say that these should not be installed and connectivity should be also available," Sinha said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India earlier this month imposed penalties on major telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular (now merged), for slipping on various service quality benchmarks for the March quarter.

About Rs 34 lakh fine has been imposed for March 2018 quarter on Reliance Jio, Rs 11 lakh on Airtel, Rs 12.5 lakh on Idea Cellular and Rs 4 lakh on Vodafone.

"Last three quarter reports (of Trai) show there is improvement. We have spoken to 1.25 crore people on call drops through IVRS (interactive voice response system) where they face call drops frequently and also made provisions to resolve it. Improvement has been enough but we want to create an ideal situation that is why I am worried," Sinha said.

He said that the government has offered its premise for installation of mobile towers so that connectivity should not suffer for want of sites.

"I have never claimed call drop has stopped. Appropriate infrastructure is required to address call drops. We wil make effort to provide good service to people with regular monitoring," Sinha said.

He said that there is need to think about out technical solution to resolve this.

"For the whole country, to be relieved of this problem, I would request my friends to seriously think about technical solution for it," Sinha said.