This refers to your Editorial on the subject. Statistics show there is an incremental economic growth with telecommunications penetration: what we forget in our ‘desperation’ to get the best now is that whatever any Government does is riddled with corruption meaning the objective is to get the highest kickbacks which will only come from the least conscientious business house with least quality!
Here the Government is struggling to run a simple garbage treatment plant: will not people from other areas protest the setting up of such non-functional plants in their village?
In India, bridges/flyovers/buildings collapse: why? Because proper standards are not followed.
Take the mobile towers: their cabling is done 5 inches below tarred roads and 0.5m to 1 m from the edge: this effectively reduces the width of the road as 2 wheelers refuse to travel in this 0.5m to 1 m width! The patch work done over the cable has come off at several places resulting in accidents. Have the standards of roads been compromised? This has no significance to us: that people can be maimed/lose their lives? TRAI has set guidelines based on the ‘stakeholders’ who are the service providers many of whom opposed Standardisation of Towers.
With Reliance ‘bagging’ the prime spots in Goa-traffic Islands — note as per TRAI the Municipalities had the right to select the location — why are other providers silent? What will they do? Yes, they will fit their antennas on the same towers increasing the SAR levels and no one will know, till it is too late.
India has procrastinated in order to favour certain people. They are now trying to speed up by circumventing codes and good manufacturing practices.
How long have cigarette companies prevented the Government from declaring the same is cancerous? How many ‘people’ also supported them saying ‘there is no evidence’…? A year back an IIT Professor from Mumbai spoke at a meeting arranged by GCCI on hazards of mobile Towers: he had a lot to say about the hazards of the same.
Always follow standards: do not take short cuts. The SAR levels of handsets in India were lowered because of people’s protests. Technology can provide answers at a cost and time factor: but we have no time?
