PERNEM: Digital India has stopped far outside their villages. So has connected India. The irony could not have been more stark. In about 24 months or less an international airport will be ready to connect Goa to the rest of the world. But the people who live in Mopa and surrounding villages can’t even connect to their next village.
The digital divide continues to affect rural Pernem as 80 per cent of these areas in the taluka still suffer from poor or no network connectivity at all.
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The poor connectivity or no network issue in Pernem has been a major problem for students. During their online classes, many were forced to move out of their houses in search of better connectivity.
Despite the government restarting offline classes, the issue has remained unsolved to date.
During the period when COVID was at its peak, the students were inconvenienced, due to the lack of Internet connectivity. The government had assured to provide proper connectivity in remote areas but that has not materialised.
Apart from educational institutions, the banks operating in several rural areas are still struggling to provide services to customers on account of poor Internet connectivity.
The most affected villages are Casarwane, Mopa, Ugvem, Warkhand, Tamboxem, Torxem, Chandel, Hasapur, Ibrampur-Hankhane, Keri, Paliem, parts of Tuem, Virnoda, Corgao and others.
Mini towers installed on the highway are still not made operational.
Parts of Mopa, Tamboxem, Ibrampur-Hankhane, and Hasapur suffer from poor or no connectivity. The residents of these areas are compelled to keep their mobile phones at one corner to receive signals.
Frustrated with the poor network connectivity, only a few have subscribed to WiFi facilities however 70 per cent of the population is still dependent on mobile network connectivity.
“With the commencement of offline classes, students also need Internet connectivity for completing their daily school assignments, but due to poor network connectivity they face difficulties. In the area around our school, network connectivity is very poor,” Subhash Sawant, a teacher from Ibrampur said.
“Now the government has taken up the initiative of installing mobile towers in villages for proper connectivity but at several places, people have raised their objection to such towers citing health problems. So far, we have not received any communication with regards to the installation of towers in our village but in case they do then they should first take the locals into confidence and then go ahead with their installation as radiation can have a very bad impact on health. And the health of the people is the topmost priority,” Sawant said.
Mahadev Chari, a parent from Hankhane said, “Poor network connectivity issue is one of the major issues which the government needs to solve. There is only one tower that caters to the entire village and that’s not enough. This tower malfunctions during power outages and restarts only when the power is restored. Poor network connectivity hampers the day-to-day studies of students and also affects the employees working from home”, Chari said.
“People, who can afford, opt for personal WiFi but what about those who cannot? These are the ones who suffer the most. Proper Internet connectivity is critical during this phase of digital India where everything is available online. Still, people cannot access it due to poor network connectivity”, Shubham Naik, a youth complained.
