Port Blair, May 28: All major communication links between Port Blair and Kolkata remained interrupted due to the damage caused by super cyclone AMPHAN on 20 May 2020, with intermittent link restoration at Kolkata, said a press release from BSNL, Andaman & Nicobar Telecom Circle today.
The OFC restoration work at Kolkata on 27 May 2020 was also hampered by heavy rain and thunderstorm.
The optical fibre end-links connecting to Kolkata Telephone Exchange, via satellite earth station at Kulpi, from earth station at Port Blair, through ISRO’s satellites, were extensively damaged at several locations, along with acute power failures at transmission hubs, along both the alternate routes, each of which is around 75 km in length. The Eastern Telecom Region, as well as Kolkata Telephone District, (wings of BSNL at Kolkata), are putting all-out efforts for early restoration. Local within-A&N voice calls in the wireline and wireless networks are unaffected, whereas mainland-bound voice calls are affected.
The links, mostly overhead OFC along the roadside, get restored by BSNL teams working day-and-night, but get repeatedly cut during the process of road clearance. The heavy machinery like bulldozers used for removing the trees by the special forces deployed for this purpose, often inadvertently pulls down the OFC cable in its proximity. Moreover there was again a spell of thunderstorm on Wednesday 26th and heavy rain on Thursday 27th, which again brought the situation back to step zero. This is the main reason for the communication links going up, and then down again, for few hours at a time.
“If there is no further adverse weather circulation around Kolkata, the telecom connectivity of A&N may get normalised within a couple of days. BSNL regrets any unavoidable inconvenience caused to their esteemed subscribers in this process,” a release from AGM (PR) BSNL A&N Circle, Port Blair said here today.
