Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 4
The recent Swachh Bharat campaign from September 29 to October 2 did not go all too well for the telecoms. Call it a lack of coordination, ignorance or sheer apathy, in the Mokokchung leg of the public cleanliness exercise, underground communication cables also got bulldozed along with the dirt.
It cut landline and broadband connections to almost a half of the town, restoration of which would likely take a week. According to BSNL sources, a section of communication cables running under a drain were severed on October 1. It happened as an excavator was bulldozing a clogged drain by the road leading to the Town Hall between Dilong and Sangtemla wards.
Describing the restoration work as tediously time consuming, the source said that the repair involves reconnecting a complex array of wires. It affected customers in DC Hill, including the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Alempang, Dilong and Amguri road.
It gave rise to a war of words, though not in public, with the administration maintaining that the telecom agency should not have laid the cables in a drain. The agency, on the other hand, defended the cables were laid back in the 70s.
The source said that the drain in question likely came later after the lines were laid. To make matters worse for future maintenance works, the source said that there were plans of plastering the drain with concrete that would practically make the cables inaccessible.
In Nagaland, the job of maintaining roads, drainage and telecommunication lines have literally transformed into a vicious cycle over the years. Telecom maintenance work often has tarred roads dug to access underground cables, while roads and drainage have been laid over communication lines and the cycle repeats.
