Two Wards in Dolpa Cut Off From Communication Services for a Month

Residents of two wards in Tripurasundari municipality in Dolpa district have been without communication services for a month.

According to locals, Nepal Telecom’s tower in the area has not been functioning, forcing hundreds of residents to travel to higher grounds to make even basic phone calls. Mina Sarki, a local from Tripurasundari-5, said that the lack of communication services has affected daily life, from contacting relatives to exchanging essential information.

‘The village has been without a tower for a long time. It’s been difficult to communicate with each other. It’s been almost a month, and we still don’t know when it will be fixed,’ she said.

Samjana Jhankri, a ward member from Tripurasundari-5, said that the disruption in telephone services has forced locals to travel to higher grounds to make phone calls. ‘Even daily tasks have been affected. The lack of communication services has also affected administrative work and emergency information exchange,’ she said.

The disruption in communication services has also affected the work of security agencies. Pandav Kumar Singh, chief of the Area Police Office in Karvagad-Khadang, said that the lack of communication services has made it difficult to report incidents, coordinate with the district, and submit daily reports.

‘The lack of communication services has affected our daily work. It’s been challenging to report incidents or coordinate with the district. Our team goes on regular patrols, but it’s difficult to communicate in case of an emergency,’ he said.

Gorakh Budha, principal of Phoksundo Basic School in Tripurasundari-5, said that the disruption in communication services has affected the school’s daily work and information exchange.

Daya Bikram Kesi, chief of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority’s Dolpa office, said that a technical team from Nepal Telecom’s Karnali Province office had arrived to repair the tower but was unable to reach the site due to a blocked road.

‘The team came to repair the tower, but they had to return from the middle of the road due to the blocked road,’ he said. ‘The problem arose due to the lack of electricity supply to the tower and the old solar battery being damaged.’

Kesi said that although the work of extending the power transmission line to the tower has been completed, there has been a delay in operating the service due to some technical reasons. He said that the authority is preparing to repair the tower and operate it soon in coordination with the Nepal Electricity Authority’s Dolpa distribution center.

‘The tower was working fine earlier. The problem arose after the 4G service was installed, and the solar battery stopped working,’ he said. ‘We will operate the 2G service for phone services, even if it means stopping the 4G service for some time.’

While the government has announced plans to expand free Wi-Fi services in developed cities, rural areas in Karnali are still deprived of basic communication services. Locals say that the disruption in telephone and internet services has affected education, health, security, administrative services, and communication with relatives.

Locals who have been without communication services for a long time have demanded that the concerned authorities repair the tower and restore communication services immediately.