NOIDA TO RELOCATE 300 MOBILE TOWERS

In the wake of health risk posed by mobile phone towers, the Noida Authority has decided to relocate all such antennas from residential areas of the city. The authority will identify locations in isolated places — far from residential colonies — where they will be relocated.
There are over 300 such towers that need to be relocated. The recent move of the authority has been initiated after court's direction to allocate mobile towers at isolated locations rather than sealing them.

The officials of the Noida Authority said that earlier they had planned to seal illegal towers, but they are working now on the guidelines of Allahabad High Court, which has ordered to shift all such towers from residential sectors to other places.

"We have ordered the officials to conduct a detailed survey and figure out alternate locations so we could ask mobile tower operators to shift their existing towers to those places. We have also ordered to get rid of the towers from institutional and hospital structures with immediate effect and shift them to other places," said PK Agarwal, Additional CEO of Noida Authority.

In a meeting of senior officials of the Noida Authority recently, the officials planned to shift these towers either to community centers at various sectors or at sparse places so radiation from these towers could not affect the local people.

The officials also decided to stop mobile tower operators from installing more towers in residential areas as city already has around 600 mobile towers for the population of seven lakh. During the meeting, it was also planned to eliminate towers installed atop hospital and institutional buildings.

According to the survey conducted by the Noida authority and city police last year, it was found that out of 600 mobile towers, 300 towers were illegally installed on the roofs of residential units. Twenty per cent of the towers have been illegally installed over institutional and hospital buildings.

In a 2010 sealing drive initiated by the authority, 200 towers were sealed from residential areas.  Meanwhile, the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association (FoNRWA) has also written to Noida authority seeking removal of mobile towers from the roofs of residential units.

“As residents are suffering from various health disorders due to high radiation from these towers, we have urged the competent authority to take penal action against the companies responsible for their wrongdoing,” said NP Singh, president of FoNRWA.