SA DC office to go online soon while three prominent Islands struggle with hopeless internet connectivity

Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Dec 29: While the District Administration of South Andaman is visibly leading the pack in introducing more electronic delivery of services to islanders under the Digital India scheme of the Govt. of India, sudden end of manual services in respect of nine services from the 1st of January next year in all likelihood will take a serious toll on residents of Neil Island, Havelock and Hut Bay, all under the jurisdiction of South Andaman region.
All the three inhabited islands have been long suffering from poor telecom and internet services and availing all the computerised services through Common Services Centres operating in the regions will become almost impossible for the residents.
To provide electronic delivery of services, the District Administration of South Andaman recently announced computerization of nine more computerised services that will be available at Common Service Centres and a e-Corners at the Tehsil Office, Port Blair and Ferrargunj.
The services include issue of Local Certificate, Senior Citizen Certificate, Solvency Certificate, Unemployment, Income certificate, NOC for Electric/Water, No-dues/Non Encumbrance, Origin certificate. The Deputy Commissioner, South Andaman also announced at the press conference that the District Administration will completely stop manual transaction of the nine services at the tehsil offices located in different parts of South Andaman.
The announcement, through welcomed by a majority of South Andaman residents, has not gone down well with the residents of Havelock, Neil Island and Hut Bay.
“Telephone and internet service, only 2G, is extremely poor in the three inhabited islands. There is no broadband and CSCs operating in these islands are doing nothing at all. Such being the situation of internet connection, availing the electronic services of the District Administration of South Andaman through CSCs is almost impossible,” said an Islander.
Residents will be forced to approach the District Office at Port Blair to get their works done after the closure of manual services at Tehsil Offices. The District Administration should mull over ways like providing better internet connectivity of VSAT Connectivity to the CSCs in the three islands before closing the manual services of the nine services.
“Till such time, the District Administration should continue the manual services at the Tehsil offices located in the three regions,” demand residents of Hut Bay.