Mobiles to be sold with safe use guides

Mobiles to be sold with safe use guides

By Chaitanya Marpakwar, Mumbai Mirror | Jun 5, 2013, 12.00 AM IST

The next time you buy a mobile phone, you will get a 'Dos and Don'ts' booklet which will tell you how to use mobile phones safely. The Department of Telecom on Tuesday told a delegation of activists that it will soon start printing the booklets.

The DoT officials, led by PK Panigrahi, announced this to a delegation of activists led by actor Juhi Chawla, Nikhil Desai and Prakash Munshi, who have been demanding an environment-friendly policy on mobile towers ever since BMC commissioner Sitaram Kunte stated that a new policy for mobile towers will be rolled out by July.

MTNL officials were also part of the meeting held on Tuesday. It will be made mandatory for retailers to give the booklet, which is being printed both in Hindi and English, to all customers buying a new phone, officials said.

The DoT has also agreed to consider banning mobile phone towers near schools. "We have had a long meeting with DoT officials. We raised many concerns about the mobile phone towers. Among the many demands we made, the DoT has agreed to print the booklets which will be given to users at the point of sale," said activist Nikhil Desai.

DoT officials also said that they would undertake a mapping project whereby citizens would be able to check the location of the nearest mobile tower and the radiation levels on the internet.

BJP corporator Vinod Shelar said, "I demanded that the mobile towers policy be implemented with retrospective effect. The BMC has said that their policy will not be retrospective which means that the hundreds of illegal towers will stay. The DoT should set up a committee to monitor the issue. The government and service provider alone can't decide our fate."

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