Tower sealing drive puts brake on communication

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The Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (MCD) recent drive to shut down allegedly illegal cellphone towers in the capital has affected youngsters the most. Because not only is their love chat getting affected, but their SMSes are also reaching late, many times leaving their loved ones stranded and helpless. Considering cellphone dependency among today’s youngsters and young professionals, many had imagined that this drive would hit them the hardest (especially after the MCD sealed 266 allegedly illegal towers in the capital last month).
For 25-year-old creative writer and marketing executive Mithun Mukherjee, the sealing drive proved to be an emotional sting when he couldn’t wish his mother on her birthday. He says, “As it was her 51st birthday on Tuesday, I decided to wish her the night before. I tried calling her, but couldn’t get through as the network kept repeating the ‘not reachable’ voice. Even my text messages reached her late. It was really depressing. It’s irritating that people who have chosen to trust a single telecom provider for years together are forced to bear the brunt.”
Many customers feel that seeing numerous service providers invading the mushrooming Indian cellphone market today, a lot of established brands felt the need to strengthen their networks, and this rat race has caused this mess. “I don’t know who’s responsible for this. But considering every brand’s assurance to provide the best service, I wish these telecom providers could be asked to live without their cellphones for a week and made to understand how bad it can get for users,” opines Vaibhav Choudhary, final year student of Delhi Law Faculty.
There is also a health-related issue associated with telecommunication towers, which has been long debated by experts. While some say close proximity to cellphone service providing towers can cause serious health-related problems (like nausea, vomiting and at times cancer), for others, there is no concrete evidence available to prove this point.
“Usually there are some notions that close proximity to telecommunication towers can have a bad effect on a person’s health, but there are no facts to back this notion. Some say the radiation emitted can be hazardous, but nothing has been proven as of yet,” opines radiologist Ashish Manohar.
According to the data provided by MCD, out of the overall 5,364 cellphone towers in the capital, 2,952 are being erected without the consent of the authority. For Roma Mathur, a student, it was sad when she got Rahul, her boyfriend’s SMS two hours late, that he won’t be able to make it for the movie they had planned on the weekend. “I kept waiting outside the cinema hall, only to get a SMS later. But I forgive Rahul, it wasn’t his fault,” she says.