It’s a moment of joy for the residents of Gavi, as the village, nestled deep inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Pathanamthitta, is finally set to receive mobile network coverage.
According to officials, the BSNL has already launched the construction of a cell phone tower inside the village, which is slated to become operational later next month. The 40-m-long tower, being set up using the universal service obligation fund of the union government for bridging the digital divide, is coming up on 0.012 hectare of forest land. The user agency of the land is the divisional engineer of BSNL, Pathanamthitta.
Gavi, a village in ward three of the Seethathodu panchayat, is currently inhabited by some 350 families and a bulk of them are descendants of Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates who were rehabilitated here in the 1970s.
