Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jun 23: Dakshina Kannada was hailed for telephone revolution in the 90s. But now, for every sundry change in the climate, people are sure about the snapping of the connectivity.

Most of the rural belts even now heavily lean on BSNL for telephone and internet connections. The district as a whole has 421 towers. Whenever power supply gets cut off, diesel generator back-ups and battery in most of these towers do not work.

BSNL faces an acute shortage of manpower and finance and therefore it is facing issues. Resultantly, whenever the power supply gets snapped, the network goes dead.

Revenue

Even though the revenue department has a wireless system, it is as good as being non-existent because of improper maintenance. An official of the department confesses that its repeater is located at Karinjeshwara, Bantwal Taluk, but laments that it has rarely functioned.

The repeater can have jurisdiction up to about 25 km radius. It is not possible to connect villages because of this restriction. Even the officials and other staff rushing for emergency assistance run the risk of losing connectivity, he stated.

Satellite phone

One satellite phone has been provided to the district to establish connectivity when all other networks go off. As only one phone is available, internal communication is becoming very difficult. T N Sathish of Malnad Hitarakshna Vedike says that network problem has been plaguing all the departments, not only in case of natural disasters. Even government ration, works of other departments etc suffer on account of a network problem, which has emerged as a major deterrent, he added.

A landslide took place at Didupe, Beltangady taluk, during last year. Because of a network problem, rescue operation had suffered initially. As it is a rural area, there are no private mobile operator services here. The power supply was suspended at that time, and as usual, BSNL towers were not working. Even landlines which the people had in the past, were found to be non-existent as people have switched over to mobile phones.

Wireless

At present, only the police wireless system has been functioning properly in Dakshina Kannada district. Even though there are base stations in every police station, its range is only about 100 meters. So it is not practical in interior areas. The anti-Naxal force has a Bolero 4x4 vehicle fitted with a mobile repeater. This has network and GPS with the capacity to work for 25 km. This is the only reliable network here now.

District superintendent of police, Laxmi Prasad, said that technical problems are encountered in most of the rescue operations. He said that the network ‘blackspot’ survey was conducted and a report was filed. He said that a proposal has been sent to convert police wireless into digital. He recalled that at the Natural Disaster Monitoring Committee meeting too, the need to provide backup support for BSNL towers was raised.