BHAWANIPATNA: Even as the Ministry of Telecommunication seeks to implement 4G saturation scheme across the country, people of 15 villages in Karlapat, the local health and educational institutions have to make do without mobile and internet connectivity for the last 18 months since the base tower has been rendered defunct.
The tower was set up in 2019-20 by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), drawing optical fibre cable from Thuamul Rampur to cater to the needs of a population of around 3,000.
The area has panchayat office, schools, health care centres and requires forest and police surveillance. There is a camp of the Central Police Reserve Force (CRPF) at Karlapat too.
However, allegedly due to lack of maintenance by BBNL, the tower service became defunct 18 months back and ever since there has been no attempt to restore the tower.
Much of the region is part of Karlapat wildlife sanctuary and has had footprints of left wing extremism and without mobile connectivity, basic governance has gone for a toss.
Residents of Karlapat, led by social activist Raj Krushna Singhdeo and Karlapat sarpanch Biswanath Majhi on Thursday presented a memorandum to Kalahandi MP Malavika Devi and collector Sachin Pawar appealing for early intervention.
Singhdeo said people are deprived of Agrinet, online governance of panchayat, police, LAMPs, veterinary, ambulance and health related services.
All the online education, digital classes, banking and forest surveillance are hit due to absence of connectivity ever since the tower is down, he added.
He said lack of mobile connectivity due to the defunct tower is affecting tourists visiting the area. The BBNL must restore the service at the earliest or provide an alternative, he added.
Telecom district manager Suresh Chandra Padhi said, under the LWE area scheme, BBNL installed the Karlapat tower in 2019-20 but has been defunct since about a year and half. The matter has been escalated to the higher authorities, he added.
As per government data, at least 3,853 revenue villages of Odisha are with mobile and internet coverage.
There are 51,176 villages in the state. Of them, 47,323 have mobile coverage while 46,050 can access 3G and 4G mobile connectivity.