Mobile tower gives residents the jitters

Times of India: Bangalore: Thursday, 18 September 2014.

The mushrooming telecommunication towers in the city are setting off alarm bells, literally. Residents living near such radiation-emitting installations are wary of the health hazards they pose. Shobha Amethyst, a gated community in Kannamangala village, Hoskote, East Bangalore, is a case in point.

The well-heeled residents of this community have been losing sleep over a mobile phone tower that was installed in the vicinity in November 2013. The tower, barely 50 metres away, is turning into a major headache for the 1,400 dwellers.

Says Abhishek Saxena, secretary of the residents' association: "Initially, we thought a telecom company must have set up the tower. Later, we got to know it was illegally installed by some other company, and that too on land meant for agriculture and residential projects."

In the absence of any concrete information, the residents' association filed several RTI applications seeking details about the structure from the gram panchayat , BBMP, BDA, KSPCB and the ministry of communications, New Delhi. However, replies from each of these stakeholders only confirmed that none of them was aware of this structure being installed, so granting approvals was out of the question.

The department of telecommunication's reply to the RTI query on August 11 categorically says it hadn't issued any clearance for setting up a tower in the mentioned address. The gram panchayat too said no permission was sought from it either. The BBMP and the BDA are no better informed.

Says Abhijit Bhattacharya, a resident association member, "Over 700 children and 100-plus senior citizens live here. They are the ones who are most susceptible to harmful radiation, which at its worst can lead to certain types of cancer An over-exposure to electromagnetic fields, as suggested by many reports worldwide, can be highly hazardous in the long run.''

NOTICE SENT

No permission was granted by the gram panchayat. We have received complaints from residents living nearby, and I have inspected the apartment. A notice has been sent to the tower company seeking information about their networking clientele. We had sought a response by September 2, but haven't heard from them yet. We are trying to find out how they installed this tower without obtaining permission from the authorities concerned. We know for sure that different telecom services are using this tower.