Mobile connectivity in Northeast villages

It is very disheartening to note that people in more than 9,000 villages across the Northeastern region have yet to get mobile connectivity. Such a situation is prevalent at a time when high-speed 5G mobile services have been launched in Guwahati (Assam), Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), Aizawl (Mizoram), Kohima and Dimapur (Nagaland), and Agartala (Tripura). The people of the Northeast have suffered all kinds of inconveniences since India attained independence. While it is a fact that the per capita income and GDP of Assam (then comprising almost the entire region) were higher than most other states of the country at the time of independence, the region began sliding downward with every passing year, with successive dispensations at the Center failing to arrest this downslide. One important reason behind the sudden downslide of things in the region was the Partition. The creation of East Pakistan in 1947 so badly cut off the region from the rest of India that for two full years there was neither railway connectivity nor highway links between the region and the mainland. The waterway link too was severed, pushing the region into a sudden economic darkness despite the fact that it was here that petroleum was first discovered, and the country’s first (and the world’s second) oil refinery was established. Looking back, one would also find that while a number of bridges were built across the Ganga in the post-independence era, people in the region had to remain content with only one bridge across the mighty Brahmaputra until 1987. Broad gauge railway tracks became a reality only after people had to agitate for them. When the whole country was enjoying the benefits of uni- or broad gauge railways, Tripura got its first meter-gauge connectivity only in 2008. People living close to the international boundaries of China, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh get better mobile signals from towers located on the other side of the international boundaries when compared to BSNL signals. Even in the so-called developed districts and capital cities of the region, not all mobile towers have been made capable enough to provide high-speed internet service. One must, however, recall that it was in November 2022 that Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju said that all the inhabited areas in the Northeast, including the border areas, must be connected with 4G networks by the end of 2023. But then, when measured in real terms, one will find that whatever significant development has taken place in various sectors has happened only in the past decade or so.