Bajura locals climb hills to make phone calls

By Sher Bahadur Sarki,Bajura, Oct. 9: Locals of Kandabasi, Khaptad Chhededaha Rural Municipality-1, in Bajura district are still forced to climb nearby hills just to make phone calls.

While 4G mobile service has been activated in most parts of the district, the signal in this area remains extremely weak; in some places, even basic phone calls do not connect properly.

Locals say they have to rush to higher ground whenever their relatives call from outside the village, as their phones only receive a signal on hilltops. “Phones sometimes work when the sun is shining, but they don’t connect at all when it rains,” said ward chairperson Bir Bahadur Rawal. 

“Most of our office work these days has to be done online. For that, we desperately need Wi-Fi. But here, we can’t even make a simple phone call without climbing a hill,” said Rawal. 

Although the ward office has an electricity supply, the lack of a nearby telecommunication tower has made it difficult to provide online services to visitors, he added.

Khaptad Chhededaha Rural Municipality has seven wards, with wards 1, Kanda and 2, Jayabagyeshwari facing similar problems. In these areas, calls either don’t connect or drop after a few seconds.

Currently, most villages rely on a Nepal Telecom tower located in Toli, Triveni Municipality–4, around 35 kilometres away. 

The tower works only intermittently; on sunny days, phone calls sometimes connect, but during rainy season, the network disappears completely.

Puran Rawal, a local, said, “For better network coverage, a telecom tower should be installed on the hill above Dhaulichhada. Only then will the people of Kanda have a stable signal.”

According to the ward office, ward-1 has a population of around 4,008, while ward-2 is home to about 2,864 people.

Nepal Telecom’s Bajura branch has acknowledged that the issue is long-standing. District branch chief Ishwar Singh said, “We need a formal request from the ward office to install a new tower. Once the application is received, we will recommend it to the Dadelhura and Attariya branches for approval.”

“After the approval, our technical team will visit the area to survey and identify the best site for tower installation,” Singh added.