Unable to text or call due to lack of mobile tower, a village in Odisha finds a unique way to send a message – The Indian Express

No satirist could have plotted it better. The residents of Bandhapari village, in Odishas Kalahandi district, invited their MLA, BJD leader Pradeep Kumar Dishari, to inaugurate a telecom tower. Only, the tower was a rickety bamboo structure, bearing a banner that read BSNL 4G. This was the angry villagers way of protesting against the lack of response to their repeated requests for a mobile tower the absence of which makes it necessary for them to travel 4 km to another village in order to make a simple phone call.

This is how Indias dream of zooming down the digital highway to arrive at some kind of technological utopia, where people buy groceries using payment apps, run entire businesses on their devices and children learn in virtual classrooms, stumbles against reality. While the hardship faced by the residents of Bandhapari is particularly unfortunate, the frustration they feel over being denied what has become a basic necessity to live and work in the 21st century would be familiar to many. Indians may have access to all the latest smartphones that hit the market, but none of the hype that accompanies a new launch can offset the discomfort of dangling precariously on a window ledge or off balcony railings to catch a signal. Or trying to make the Hobsons choice between service providers who are technically different, but offer exactly the same patchy network connectivity and indifferent customer service (until one threatens to port to a trade rival, in which case the red carpet of undivided attention and special offers is suddenly rolled out).

While Dishari said that he understood their frustrations, he couldnt do much, as clearance for a new tower would have to come from the Centre. As for the Bandhapari villagers, they have threatened to boycott all elections until their demands are met. Perhaps they are hoping that will send a message even clearer than the bamboo 4G mobile tower.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on January 7, 2022 under the title Network unavailable.

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Unable to text or call due to lack of mobile tower, a village in Odisha finds a unique way to send a message - The Indian Express