At least 12 districts of the country have been affected by severe floods. Telecommunication services have been cut off in these districts. As a result, the army, navy and volunteers are struggling to carry out rescue and relief operations. Helpless people trapped in the water are unable to communicate with their relatives. Hundreds of thousands of people are worried about it.
To bring back this concern, the Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Adviser Md. Nahid Islam has instructed BTRC to provide free diesel to the generators to keep the mobile network running in Feni district while the mobile towers were not functioning due to lack of electricity. The directive proved beneficial and the mobile towers started to function from Sunday. Eventually, the rate of towers that are operational by 9 am has increased by 2 percent. And, 65 out of 65 towers are now operational.
The regular updated monitoring report of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission BTRC says that besides Feni, the situation in flood affected Cumilla, Noakhali, Laxmipur and other districts is improving. With the restoration of electricity connection in the districts, the towers are gradually being made operational.
According to the notice signed by Director General of Engineering and Operations Department of BTRC, Brigadier General Kazi Mustafizur Rahman, 6 percent of Cumilla, 10 percent of Noakhali and 5.1 percent of Laxmipur towers are non-operational. Out of the 11 affected districts, 16.5 percent of towers in Khagrachhari have been destroyed. As a percentage, 2.2 percent of the total inactive sites became active in the last 24 hours.
