Govt likely to notify mobile phone safety norms under Bureau of Industrial Standards Act

KOLKATA: The government plans to notify mobile phone safety standards under the Bureau of Industrial Standards (BIS) Act and not the Indian Telegraph Rules to ensure that it has legal powers to demand compliance of the telecom department-mandated “safe radiation limits” from domestic as well as foreign handset makers.

Radiation varies from one mobile phone to another and is measured in terms of its specific absorption rate ( SAR) value, which is the quantum of radio waves absorbed by the body when using a handset.

The SAR value determines if a mobile phone meets safety requirements. The telecom department ( DoT) wants handset makers to ensure the SAR value of all locallymanufactured and imported mobiles is a maximum 1.6 watts per kg.

“Utilising the BIS route would be the practical way to enforce DoT’s SAR value notification since the Act empowers the government to check whether any article or process conforms to Indian standards,” says an internal DoT note reviewed by ET.

DoT proposes to emulate the department of electronics & IT (DeiTY), which had about two years ago notified 15 electronic products under the BIS Act to ensure that they were registered and met Indian safety standards.

These items included video games, laptops, notebooks, tablets, plasma/LCD/LED televisions, microwave ovens, printers, scanners, telephone answering machines and electronic musical systems.