Team Herald
MARGAO: Expressing shock at Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s threat of “using weapons” against people protesting against mobile towers, Navelim locals said such a statement amounts to subversion of democracy.
Villagers present at the Navelim Civic & Consumers Forum monthly meeting also noted that the Parsekar’s is only concerned about a few foreign delegates and is least bothered about the health of the locals.
The villagers wondered to why government was promoting private companies when the BSNL itself was struggling to compete.
One of the villagers said that he has never seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi advertise for BSNL, but on the contrary he is canvassing for Reliance Jio.
“Instead of issuing threats, the CM could have cleared the doubts raised by the people regarding the mobile tower distance, emission levels and the whole tower network plan. Normally, there are three cells on each tower, each covering 120 degrees and the standard distance covered by a tower with maximum height is around 6-8 kms,” NCCF secretary Joseph Vaz informed.
There is fear among the people as there is no regulation and monitoring system in place to check the radiation from the mobile towers. Also a sudden increase in number of towers without proper planning can turn into a health problem.
They said that the best option would be to install temporary mobile towers for the BRICS summit.
