Sarthak Kanjilal & DJ Venkatesh
Port Blair, December 26: On one hand the government is claiming tall about Digital India and on the other hand in the remotest parts of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, like Kalara, Kalighat and Ramnagar of Diglipur region, the residents are struggling even to get mobile signals in their mobile phones.
Condition is so bad that even for making an important call for personal or professional purposes, the residents have to travel all the way to Diglipur area, which is nearly 23 km away.
The services provided by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is so poor that since last one week the landline services are also interrupted in the area and to the utter dismay after waiting for a week long time, in the hope that the BSNL services will restored, the residents were told by the staffs of the Diglipur BSNL exchange on Monday that they had no knowledge about the interruption in BSNL services in the area.
This was not the end of their heart ache, the residents were even informed by the staffs of the Telephone Exchange that they can’t help them as the systems in the offices are 20-30 year old and they are also not getting any support from the head office.
“Staying in the remotest part of the island is now a curse to us, we are unable to do anything without network,” said a resident of Kalighat.
“I am posted in the Kalighat region for almost 01 year, my entire family wife and daughter are in Port Blair and since last one week I haven’t spoken to them, they might be worried about me,” said a government servant on the condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the new Airport area covering Aerial Bay to Shibpur of 10 km, also does not have BSNL network since 16 days. Landlines including mobile and broadband are completely down. BSNL DE at Mayabunder told to Andaman Sheekha that a team from Baratang is trying to find out the exact areas of the fault.
Sources said that the rats are cutting the OFC cable in many places, because of which finding the fault becomes difficult. Earlier the Diglipur’s BSNL team tried to find out the faults and join the OFC but the Cable joining machine is already damaged. Major Defense establishments Navy, Army and Newly constructed Shibpur Airport also situated in this area.
