Himachal Pradesh rain fury: 65% damaged telecom sites restored in Chamba, Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti

SHIMLA: At least 65% of damaged telecommunication infrastructure sites in Chamba, Kullu, as well as Lahaul and Spiti districts, were made functional as of Wednesday. Extensive damage was suffered by the telecommunication network in Chamba, Kullu, Lahaul, and Spiti districts on August 25 and 26 due to torrential rains.

The intensity of the disaster was such that, according to the network outage report, out of a total of 1,761 sites in district Chamba being operated by Airtel, Reliance Jio, BSNL, and Vodafone Idea, a total of 1,155 (around 66%) sites were non-functional as of August 27.

Thereafter, on chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s directions, the state govt officials initiated round-the-clock efforts to restore electricity supply and mobilised all telecom service providers to work on a war footing for the restoration of the telecommunication services.Gokul Butail, principal advisor information technology and innovation to chief minister, said that as of September 2, only 374 sites remained non-functional, indicating a 45% improvement in the network in Chamba district. As far as the Bharmour region is concerned, out of 10 sites of BSNL, the network was restored on microwave connectivity at five sites, and the rest of the sites will be restored very shortly, he added.

The work of optical fibre cable (OFC) restoration is also likely to take almost a week. The connectivity of Reliance Jio in the Bharmour region is likely to be made functional by September 6, and the 2G services of Airtel have already been restored in the area.Butail added that in Kullu district, out of 877 sites of Airtel telecom services, 84.9% were made functional as of September 2, while out of 1,173 sites, 65% of Reliance Jio telecom services were functioning smoothly. Out of 391 sites of BSNL, about 20% of telecom services are working normally. In Lahaul-Spiti district, out of 63 sites of Airtel, 96.8% were made operational, whereas out of 170 sites of Reliance Jio Services, 84.1% were functioning smoothly as of September 2.