Humla locals climb trees to find mobile signals

By Nanda Singh,Raling (Humla), June 30: Residents of Chankheli Rural Municipality in Humla are still forced to climb trees to make phone calls. Despite being about 48 miles (around 144 km) away from the district headquarters Simkot, the people in the southern area of Chankheli still have no choice but to climb trees to find a mobile signal.

Due to the lack of mobile towers in suitable locations, people living in low-lying villages cannot access proper mobile network services. Locals said that even after repeatedly raising the issue with the concerned authorities, no solution has been provided. They have been suffering from the same network problems for years.

Not only in the centre of the rural municipality but also in most villages, people still face network issues due to the lack of mobile towers. Even during the day, when the signal is weak or unavailable, they are forced to climb high places or trees to make calls.

Locals often climb high places and trees just to make phone calls, said Basuna Tamang, a local. “We have to look for places where the tower signal reaches to exchange important information or talk to relatives living in other parts of Nepal or abroad,” Tamang said. When phone networks does not work, people have to walk all the way to the rural municipality office just to find out whether officials and employees are present or not, Tamang added.

Nepal Telecom has said that the process of building a 4G tower is underway to ensure mobile network coverage in the rural municipality centre. The telephone tower of Nepal Telecom located in Melchham within the rural municipality has not been working properly, causing difficulties in communication.

Even in Piplang, the centre of Chankheli Rural Municipality, there is still no proper communication service. The lack of communication services at the centre has affected daily administrative work. 

Although there are telephone towers in other parts of the municipality, none of them are functioning properly in the rural municipality centre, leaving it cut off from communication.

Chairperson of the rural municipality, Pyari Lal Shahi, said that the lack of communication services at the centre has made daily work very difficult. The telephone installed at the rural municipality office does not work, forcing people to climb hills to make calls. Shahi added that although most problems and complaints from the public could be solved over the phone, due to poor communication facilities, people are compelled to travel to the municipality office in person.

Chief Administrative Officer Deepak Giri said that although private wireless internet has been installed at the office, it is not reliable. As a result, even basic tasks like exchanging office documents have become difficult. Due to the poor internet connection, even the branch of a bank could not be opened in the rural municipality centre for a long time.

When there are problems with the telephone tower, many official tasks come to a halt. Since the telephone stopped working at the centre, it has become difficult for people to contact relatives living outside the village and district.

Locals have to walk for two hours to Darma just to make a phone call. Chairperson Shahi said that even to report phone problems, there is no mobile tower coverage anywhere to contact the relevant offices. He also complained that there is no tower at Nepal Telecom’s office in Humla itself.