Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly speaker Pasang D Sona has written to Union telecommunication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad regarding the ‘erratic’ BSNL mobile network services in remote Shi-Yomi district bordering China.
Sona, in a letter to Prasad on Monday, while highlighting the problems being faced by the people of the district due to lack of proper mobile connectivity, said “low signal strength and congestion in the BSNL network is making it difficult for the locals to communicate with their contacts.”
“Shi Yomi, a picturesque border district is presently covered by BSNL’s 2G mobile services and the same is connected through satellite in Mechukha, Tato and Monigong.
“However, due to poor signal and heavy congestion, the BSNL subscribers are unable to communicate smoothly. The subscribers frequently experience call drops which are very irritating,” Sona said in his letter.
Mechuka, a sub-division in Shi-Yomi is around 486km from the state capital Itanagar while the Tato and Monigong circles of the district are around 440 and 495kms away respectively.
Sona who also represents the Mechuka assembly constituency said “Shi Yomi, being a hot tourist destination has a sizeable population including the floating population in the form of tourists and others who entirely depend on the BSNL network for communication.”
“Also all the government establishments including central, state and defense personnel depend on the BSNL network service for communication and office works.
“But due to heavy congestion and signal issues, the office works as well as other important usages suffer a lot, he said while adding that “there is no internet service in the region,” Sona said.
Sona said “in order to do away with the problem the BSNL authority in the state was requested several times to look into the matter and resolve the issue, however, laying optical fiber cables seems to be the only solution.”
Further requesting the union minister to approve adequate funds for the creation of optical fiber network up to Mechukha and Monigong so as to ensure a permanent solution to the problem, the speaker also appealed to the former to approve the up-gradation of network services from 2G to 3G, for the time being.