DHENKANAL:Lack of funds for infrastructural development, shortage of cables and apathy of the Centre towards extending telecommunication to rural areas have upset people waiting for broadband and landline facility in Dhenkanal district.
The schemes introduced by BSNL to provide telecommunication facilities in rural areas like landline, kiosk, WLL and other services have fallen flat. The situation is so pathetic that even people staying within seven kms from district headquarters town have not been provided a landline facility.
The residents of Kankadapal, Ranja and its adjacent villages in Sadar block, are yet to be provided landline facility and a broadband connection only seems a dream for them.
Ranapesi and its adjacent villages, located about five to six kms from district headquarters, neither have landline phone nor any other telecom connection with interruption-free service. This has not only hit business prospects but also failed to serve the e-service purpose in information and business activities in rural areas besides education.
A youth Chandu Das of Ranja said he had applied for a kiosk more than a month back but was denied one by the authorities concerned after running from pillar to post to avail th facility.
Even mobile service is often interrupted in Dhenkanal telecom district (Dhenkanal-Angul) in the absence of adequate number of mobile tower stations (BTS-Base Transgivers Station).
Sources said, 206 BTS have been installed but those are insufficient compared to number of mobile connections in service.
Dhenkanal Telecom district GMTD, Harish Mohanty, said fund crunch has hampered infrastructure development. We don’t have cable to provide landline for which the requisitions of hundreds of people for connections, both commercial and domestic purposes, are blocked.
The BSNL has decided to install 91 more BTS in Dhenkanal telecom district within a year. This was decided at a meeting in presence TRAI representative R N Sahoo and senior telecom officers recently.