KARACHI: There has been no response from the mobile phone companies in the metropolis to the call of Sindh Minister for Environment and Alternative Energy, Dr Saghir Ahmed for shifting of mobile phone towers out of residential areas.

The studies have revealed that mobile phone towers emitted harmful electromagnetic waves, sharing a portion of pollution and affecting the human health.

The sources in mobile phone companies said that shifting of towers was not an easy job due to complicated process.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issues licences to cellular companies for operation while the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) is authorised to allow them for setting up towers in the metropolis. It is not clear which authority would take action against companies for not shifting their towers.

The issue seems to be a legal battle now as cellular companies have contracted with owners of buildings where mobile towers had been installed. There are thousands of mobile towers in Karachi but the policy matters of various cell phone companies are settled in Islamabad and Lahore. Hence there is no agenda to address the issue at local level.

On Wednesday, Dr Saghir Ahmed had said that mobile companies had not informed the authorities about the health hazards of these towers at the time of installation. He said that strict action would now be taken against these companies if they failed to shift their towers out of residential areas of the metropolis. He also mentioned that if the guidelines set by the International Committee on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection were followed, these risks could be minimised.

Cases of health hazards by these towers are not new. A number of NGOs in the past had raised their voices against setting up of these towers in residential areas but ironically no heed was paid in this regard. The authorities in Pakistan had turned conscious at a time when matter had become very complex because shifting of tower would cause huge financial losses to the companies.