By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAY 03, 2017: THE Minister of Communications, Mr Manoj Sinha, launched Tarang Sanchar, a web portal for Information sharing on Mobile Towers and EMF Emission Compliances, yesterday. He said that it will go a long way in clearing the myths and misconceptions of public on mobile towers and emissions from them. He expressed the hope that the portal will empower common man 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.

Mr Sinha said that the portal will allow users to get a tower or base station checked for radiation emission, for a fee of Rs 4,000. Brushing aside growing concerns over the emanating electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiations from mobile towers, the Telecom Minister once again reminded that Indian norms had prescribed 10 times stricter limits for radiation emission in comparison to global standards. He said that more measures are being taken to penalize the erring entities.

Mr Sinha said that to realize the Prime Minister's vision of Digital India, it is necessary to have more and more mobile towers in every nook and corner of the country and the Ministry has already approved installation of towers over government buildings, 16 places in post offices and soon a decision will be taken to install the same in Cantonment Boards, which will not only help in spreading digital connectivity, but will also solve the problem of call drops significantly. Describing the launch of the portal a historic step, the Minister said that in future it will help in identifying the blind spots and added that it is also environment friendly as no paper work is required for this. He said that it 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).

In his address, the Chairman, TRAI Mr R S Sharma said that the portal will be a mile stone for transparency, fair play, citizen empowerment and will finally lead to a knowledge economy. He said that digital empowerment in India is only possible when there is adequate digital infrastructure. Mr Sharma said that mobile phone in India today is not only a talking tool, but it has become an instrument for various transactions including cashless transaction and he lauded the collaborative effort between the government and the industry for this.