Fani-hit Odisha struggles to restore power
In capital city Bhubaneswar, though around 10 per cent of mobile towers were damaged, net services stands completely disrupted till date.
Bhubaneswar: People in Odisha’s cyclone Fani affected districts continue to battle network services as telecom companies hesitate to provide seamless internet connectivity without power supply getting fully restored.
In capital city Bhubaneswar, though around 10 per cent of mobile towers were damaged, net services stands completely disrupted till date.
Telecom majors blame the network outages on power blackout in the city since Friday last.
However, some semblance of telecom services seem to have restored on Tuesday, when major telecom players like Idea-Vodafone, Airtel, Jio and BSNL decided to provide seamless telecom services under the inter-operability agreement in the capital city from May 2.
Some senior functionaries of a major telcos observed that unless the power supply was fully restored in the city, seamless telecom services are not possible. “In order to charge fully functional towers and base stations, we require grid power support. It’s impossible to keep telecom towers operational for more than 24 hours with diesel generators,” he explained.
Post Fani, the chinks in Odisha’s disaster management came to the fore when state’s power utilities blamed lack of telecom services proving a dampener in restoring damaged power infra; and telcos blaming power disruption a top hurdle in resuming telecom services in Fani-hit Bhubaneswar and other parts of the state.
Odisha government’s senior officials are non-committal on a date for complete restoration of power supply to Fani-hit villages in Khurda and Puri districts. Highly placed sources in the government said full restoration of power supply in affected villages.