Vyas, Mastighat area people climb trees to get cell phone network

By Amar Raj Naharki,Tanahun, Aug. 3: It might be hard to believe that in today’s digital age, there are still people who have no access to communication technology. 

However, that’s a reality in several wards of Vyas Municipality and Devghat Rural Municipality of Tanahun district. 

According to locals and officials, there is no cell tower near the Chhabdi Barahi Temple area in wards 12, 13 and 14 of Vyas and Mastighat area in Ward No. 2 of Devghat.

Roads have reached these areas and so have automobiles and commercial goods, but there is no network on the phones.

"We contact someone when we need to. We cannot be contacted by someone else who needs us. That’s because of the lack of network on our mobile phones," said Rupa Thapa, a 51-year-old from Mastighat.

Thapa stressed that she walks to the hilltop, climbs trees or travels to a nearby village to get a network and call someone.

Gum Bahadur Malla, another local, said that a mobile phone could get some network from the cell towers in Kotbaidi of Devghat and Duwung of Rishing if they climbed a tall tree on the hilltop.

"My grandson got sick recently and I suffered due to no network on my phone. There is always a difficulty to make a call to an ambulance when someone gets sick in the village," said Malla.

Locals also argued that they felt sad that they were unable to talk with their friends and relatives whenever they wanted to as people elsewhere. 

"I have two sons abroad. I feel like talking to them every once in a while. However, I can neither climb trees nor hilltops to make a call at this old age," said Man Bahadur Thapa, a local elderly.

"Many pilgrims arrive at the Chhabdi Barahi Temple daily. However, there is no tower on their mobile phones. There are also 200 households here without a connectivity," said Than Bahadur Thapa, chairman of Chhabdi Barahi Temple Conservation Committee.

Thapa said that the locals had written to Ncell, a private telecommunication company in Nepal, requesting it for the construction of a cell tower as a majority of the villagers used the company’s SIM cards.  "Our requests have remained unheard for long. We plan to handover the SIM cards to the respective telecommunication companies soon," said Thapa.

While locals demanded the construction of a cell tower nearby, authorities informed that they were planning to expand connectivity to the deprived areas.

"It seems like a stone age when there is an inability to make a phone call for lack of network. Telecom authorities, though, have shown positive response and a cell tower might be constructed in the area in the current fiscal year," said Shantiram Wagle, chief of Tanahun District Coordination Committee.

Until then, Nepal Telecom Office in Damauli said that they would take some steps to extend the range of the network in the respective areas.

"We are looking forward to either extending the length of the existing cell towers or changing the direction of antennas as required to solve the problems. The Pokhara-based office has also been informed about the issue," said Prabhat Adhikari, chief senior engineer at the Damauli-based Nepal Telecom office.