VISAKHAPATNAM: As many as 1,787 villages in Andhra Pradesh do not have mobile connectivity, as per the data of the Union ministry of communications that was provided in Parliament on Wednesday. This is despite giant leaps made by state in the digital revolution over the last several decades.
Of these 1,787 villages, more than 1,000 hamlets are located in Visakhapatnam tribal pockets alone, affecting e-governance initiatives, service delivery, disaster management, dissemination of information and knowledge, learning facilitation, skill upgradation and development, etc.
Due to this digital divide, tens of villages in tribal mandals like Araku, Chintapalli, Dumbriguda, GK Veedhi, Munchingiputtu, Pedabayalu, Ananthagiri, etc. are socially and geographically isolated from the outside world.
According to experts, the lack of mobile and internet connectivity is only further exacerbating the economic and societal inequalities in these hamlets, which have long been battling even for basic infrastructure such as roads and health facilities. Even those villages that have mobile network have poor signal quality, making the tribals run for network coverage to distant places from their homes for making/receiving a call.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown also highlighted this digital divide in tribal areas in accessing Covid-19 testing, treatment, and vaccination, apart from its impact on remote teaching and learning at least in the first one year of Covid-19.
The Union cabinet, in November 2021, gave its approval for provisioning of mobile services in uncovered villages of aspirational districts across various states, including Andhra Pradesh. The project envisages providing 4G based mobile services in 1,218 villages in Visakhapatnam (1,054), Vizianagaram (154) and Kadapa (10) districts. The entire project has been proposed at an estimated cost 6,466 crore.
Funded by the universal service obligation fund (USOF), tenders have recently been floated for this project. According to the officials, the project has a timeline of 18 months from the date of execution of the agreement.
Even if the network is extended to these 1,218 unconnected villages in Andhra Pradesh under USOF, 569 villages will still remain outside the ambit of mobile network.
There are about 3,000 villages in Visakhapatnam tribal area. Even several village secretariats, introduced for door-to-door service delivery and better outreach of government initiatives, could not meet their objectives due to lack of mobile and internet connectivity.
