Mobile connectivity woes: Ranikor residents ‘opting for B’deshi sim cards’

SHILLONG: Poor cellular connectivity in several parts of the State continues to bring endless inconvenience to the residents of such areas that mostly lie along the international border with Bangladesh. Adding to the woes of the people is the alleged indifference of private telecommunication companies which refuse to venture into such areas.
A glaring example of such apathy is Ranikor in West Khasi Hills District. Villagers of the far flung border area complained that barring BSNL, no other service provider has ventured into the area which is well covered by Bangladeshi telecommunication companies like BD link and Grameen phone.
“Even with BSNL we have to go certain locations to avail the network,” a resident of the area, who is a contractor by profession, said.
Other residents said poor cellular connectivity almost cuts them off from the rest of the State.
Alarmingly, the poor cellular connectivity has reportedly forced some of the residents to use Bangladeshi sim cards. People are, however, reluctant to admit the same.
A resident on condition of anonymity said, “Bangladeshi sim cards are available here.”
Meanwhile, BSF Meghalaya Frontier IG, Sudesh Kumar said that most of the people in the area use Bangladeshi sim cards since their signal is very strong.
According to Kumar, at one point of time, signals of Bangladeshi service providers were available till Mawsynram but now the strength of the signal has been reduced.
He added that restricting the cellular connectivity provided by Bangladeshi companies to the international border will help in reducing the crime rate in the border areas as the communication lines of the criminals would be severed.
It may be mentioned that poor or zero mobile connectivity is not a new thing in Meghalaya and even now many of the far flung areas of the State are yet to be properly connected.
Last year, the Union Government approved a Rs 5,300 crore project to boost telecom infrastructure and connectivity in the North East Region since out of the 43,200 villages in the North East 9,190 (21 per cent) are not connected to any mobile network. The project is suppose to cover 8,621 villages.