Baramulla, Oct 9 : Hundreds of residents including students of the border village of Kamalkote in Baramulla district are suffering badly due to lack of internet connectivity and poor mobile phone service.
The residents said that at a time when the administration has made online education an alternate standard for offline classes in the wake of Covid -19, the students of this village are deprived of access to online mode of education following the lack of internet facility.
Muhammad Yousuf Khan, Sarpanch Kamalkote Village, said that despite two mobile towers of Jio network being erected in the area, equipped with transformer as well as other equipments, both towers are non functional, resulting in inconvenience to the locals here.
“Despite two mobile towers being erected here, none of them are operational.” said Muhammad Yousuf Khan. “The concerned internet service provider should be made accountable by the administration for depriving the people of this village of internet facility,” added Yousuf khan.
The students of this village are worst sufferers. In absence of internet services, the students of this village had to trek several kilometres to get signal on their mobile phones so that they can attend online classes or submit assignments.
Faliha Tariq, a class 6th student and resident of Kamalkote Uri, while sharing her experience said that students of entire village of Kamalkote village are deprived of education. She said they can have access to internet only when they travel to nearby villages.
“It is extremely difficult to travel nearby villages for each online class,” said Faliha Tariq. “Most of the time we miss online classes as we have to trek several kilometres to catch signal,” she added.
Muhammad Shafi, another resident of the Kamalkote village appealed authority to redress their grievance. He said adjacent villages of Kamalkote have internet facility and they all fall on the same axis as his village. However, depriving a single village of the internet connectivity is injustice with the people of this village. “Let authorities take note of our grievance and play their role in redressing it,” he said.
Meanwhile, an official of Jio Network while acknowledging that both towers are not functional yet said that they are waiting for the permission to start the internet services in the area.
“We are waiting for permission from the security officials, once permission is granted, the towers will be made functional. We are optimistic to start towers within a couple of week,” said Shabir Ahmad, an official of Jio network Baramulla.