Campbell Bay, Nov 8 2020
The residents of Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar have always faced telecommunication issues. On 10th of August 2020 when PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the Chennai-Andaman and Nicobar Islands Submarine Optical Fiber Cable System a ray of hope emerged for the residents of these remote Islands including those residing in Great Nicobar.
On the day of inauguration of CANI SMC the launch was limited to Little Andaman on the southern side of Port Blair. On 15th of September 2020 Mr. Chetan B Sanghi, Chief Secretary of Andaman and Nicobar Administration tweeted “India’s Southernmost Island, the Great Nicobar, now has high speed internet. #NewAndamans” along with an image of speed test which showed download speed of 9.53 Mbps being achieved.
The tweet of the Chief Secretary apprised the local residents on CANI SMC being functional in Great Nicobar. The speed and stability in broadband improved considerably in Campbell Bay.
The increased speed and stability of broadband connections in Campbell Bay have failed to impress the ordinary residents of the Islands, since everyone does not own a broadband connection and it is really difficult to obtain one.
The broadband connections by BSNL are only available in Campbell Bay Panchayat area and some parts of Govind Nagar Panchayat. Great Nicobar Islands have a large settlement area spread from zero to nine kilometres on the East-West Road and zero to thirty five kilometres on the North-South Road.
The residents were settled in clusters of population after Tsunami destroyed their homes which were built alongside the old North-South Road. The villages in North-South Road of Campbell Bay fall under the jurisdiction of Laxmi Nagar Panchayat. The main villages of Laxmi Nagar Panchayat are Joginder Nagar, Laxmi Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Shastri Nagar. All these villages have clusters of Permanent Tsunami Shelters with considerable population.
Great Nicobar had landline connections in all villages before the 2004 Tsunami. The Tsunami destroyed the underground cables and exchanges of Great Nicobar. Since the complete population of Great Nicobar was brought to Campbell Bay and were kept in temporary shelters after Tsunami, because of lack of road connectivity, it was never felt that these underground network cables of BSNL should be laid again.
Fast forward almost sixteen years from Tsunami, the residents have been settled back in their villages and some have even built their own houses in their allotted land and many live in the permanent shelters but still the residents of Laxmi Nagar Panchayat do not have the option of getting a landline installed in their homes today.
Nicobar Times accessed a letter written by the students of Shastri Nagar Village of Great Nicobar addressed to the authorities of BSNL copies of which were marked to the Assistant Commissioner, Campbell Bay, Deputy Commissioner, Nicobar District, Chief Secretary, Andaman and Nicobar Administration and Chief General Manager of BSNL, requesting them to commission landline services at their village, so that they can study efficiently. Schools have started in Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar now, but back then on 19th of October 2020 when the letter was written, the students were sent notes by their teachers through internet and these students were not able to download it because there is no internet in their village.
On paper BSNL has mobile network coverage in Shastri Nagar Village but in reality most of the time, the network remains down and even if the signal is displayed, being able to call someone is very difficult because of call drops.
Even the administrative headquarters of Great Nicobar does not have 3G or 4G mobile services. The internet in Campbell Bay is only available through broadband today, the bandwidth is available today and the Central Govt. has done its job. Now the ball is in BSNL’s court.
There is an urgent need to commission 3G/4G mobile services in whole of Great Nicobar Islands including the villages of Laxmi Nagar Gram Panchayat so that everybody gets to reap the benefit of the information age.
Further the Nicobarese tribal population living in far off places in Great Nicobar Islands like Afra Bay have also been demanding mobile network services in their villages. These places are far off from Campbell Bay and have no connectivity through road and is only accessible by sea now, but if BSNL is able to connect even these villages with mobile network it would be a game changer.
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