KARWAR: This remote village wanted to log into the internet. But thought it would remain a dream. A youth stepped in. The net result: Students can happily attend online classes now. The woes began thus: An instruction from a private school where Abhishek Naik is a 7th standard student from Wailwada, has rendered his parents helpless. They were told to ensure that their son attended online classes compulsorily. The parents who have tried their best to ensure that their son did not come in contact with Covid-19 by making him safe at home had a bigger worry now.
The worry was the internet connection for their village as it is an isolated patch with not even a proper mobile phone signal. They had come to their relatives’ house close to Karwar to ensure their ward attended the classes. The story of Prithvi Naik, another student, is similar. She has to go to a distant place from her remote village to attend classes. The nearest point where they can get internet easily is 3 km away -- Bodjug village-- which stands on the main road connecting Karwar and Goa.
But now their troubles are over as they are able to access the internet from the house of Sagar Naik, who has not only got the first internet connection from a private player, but has also made his password available to all the students in the village. Sagar Naik, a final year student at Girijabai Sail Institute of Technology, near Majali in Karwar taluk, was moved after he found that the students here were struggling to study. The schools were closed due to the pandemic lockdown. “I wanted the students here to study without interruption. Therefore, I decided to allow them to use the net from my house free of cost,” he says.
Students of all ages — right from primary school to engineering colleges — come to his house to utilize the internet and study. The digital divide between the urban and rural areas being so wide, getting an internet connection in a rural area, particularly a place like Wialwada was not an easy task. “There is no infrastructure to provide internet connectivity between Siddar village and Devarmakki. There is a river between. Wailwada is a tiny village with hardly 100 houses.
We have to draw long cable lines almost up to 1km. We paid for the cable to ensure network connection. Now we are the only house with an internet connection,” says Sanath Naik, Sagar’s father, who works with Wailwada gram panchayat. He says he is happy that his son has understood the difficulty of students and has come forward to help them. “By sharing his net, he has shown that he cares for them,” he adds.
Sagar has inspired many seniors in the village.
They have now appealed to the Gram Panchayat and the district administration to ensure internet facility in the village. Satwik Naik, a second standard student from Bengaluru, has come to Wailwada, his hometown, where his uncle stays now. He was sent there by his parents to protect him from Covid- 19. Soon after the lockdown was extended, his parents were wondering how to make him attend online classes. He is today one of the beneficiaries of Sagar’s internet.