Even as a debate over the hazardous effects of mobile towers on health continues, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, the telecom arm of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), has brought in pollution-free green telecom towers.

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An RIL spokesperson said: "These state-of-the-art Reliance Jio towers (roof-top and ground-based masts) are designed to consume just 600-700 Watts of power — one fourth of the power consumed by existing conventional towers. These towers operate on lithium-ion batteries, eliminating the need for space and fuel-guzzling diesel generators."

According to the spokesperson, ground-based masts (GBMs), which are specially designed keeping in mind the safety of community at large, rise from 25m to 30m into the sky. "Radiation dissipates faster in open spaces and the area below the towers get negligible radiation with no health hazard," he added.

The towers have been tested and certified by IIT, Bombay. Professor Abhay Karandikar, former head of Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Bombay, said, "The Jio GBM solution is most suitable and highly recommended for telecom network infrastructure. It's a truly green solution."

Reliance Jio is building a country-wide broadband next-generation network that is aligned to the government's vision of a Digital India.

Setting up a tower network across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane is part of this initiative. Jio towers are designed to rigorous national and international standards and conform to all statutory requirements as mandated by law.

The towers, with a very small footprint, mix well with the city infrastructure and can be used for various community services like street lighting, mounting safety cameras and public messaging, which will make public places safe, especially for women and children.

An electrical engineer who has been working in the field of mobile towers and telephony, said, "There is a perception that signals coming from mobile towers are hazardous. By the time the signals reach the habitat, its strength would have reduced to very safe levels.

However, when one uses a cell phone, though of much lower power, the phone generates radio signals for carrying the signals back to the cell tower. Since the phone is held close to the ears, the distance between phone and brain is very short and the signals are concentrated in a small area. Thus, to minimise the effect of this signal which is very close to the body, the cell phones are designed to reduce the signal strength to a level just adequate for reaching the cell tower antenna. Further the antenna, stronger would be the signal."

Reliance Jio is actually pursuing authorities to install more cell sites so that it can provide stronger signal and thus cause phones to operate at lower power, in effect reducing the radiation exposure.

Reliance Industries Ltd has already chalked out a plan for setting up over 1,00,000 towers for handling these operations in the next three years.

4G services were launched in the last week of December for employees of the company. A full-fledged launch is planned in March this year.