SHILLONG, July 15: More than 60 villages along the northern belt of Meghalaya’s Ri-Bhoi district have come together to raise a formal complaint against Bharti Airtel, citing chronic and disruptive mobile network failures that have left large sections of the population digitally stranded.
In a letter to Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, residents from these predominantly tribal areas have called for immediate state intervention, warning that continued inaction is exacerbating their social and economic marginalisation.
The complaint highlighted that Airtel’s network in these areas is “highly erratic,” with frequent and prolonged outages that often stretch for hours. These disruptions, villagers say, severely impact essential services, delay emergency communication, and halt digital financial transactions — disproportionately affecting daily-wage earners and low-income pre-paid users.
Residents allege that the telecom provider has failed to meet its obligations under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), a central scheme designed to guarantee telecom access in remote and underserved regions. Despite receiving support under this scheme, Airtel continues to charge users full prepaid fees in advance, without offering extensions or any form of compensation for disrupted services.
Frustrated by the lack of redressal, the affected villages had earlier raised their concerns through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) and had also written to Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia. However, they claim no substantial steps have been taken to improve the situation on the ground.
The complaint characterises the ongoing network failure as not merely technical but systemic negligence. Residents describe it as a form of exploitation, where already marginalised tribal communities are being denied their right to basic digital connectivity while continuing to pay for services that are inconsistently delivered.
In their appeal to the CM, the villagers have outlined several demands, including immediate accountability measures against Airtel, a technical audit of the affected network zones by the Department of Telecommunications, exploration of alternative service providers, and compensation for users who have faced repeated service disruption.
The residents argue that the issue goes beyond consumer inconvenience and strikes at the heart of digital inclusion in tribal regions. With essential services ranging from online education and healthcare to welfare schemes and banking — now tied to mobile connectivity, they urge the state government to take swift and decisive action to restore and safeguard their access to the digital ecosystem.
