Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
By Dheeraj Fartode
To strengthen telecommunication network in Naxal hotbed of Maharashtra, Central Government has given its nod to erection of 60 mobile network towers in Gadchiroli, Gondia, and Chandrapur districts. Accordingly, State Home Department has constituted a monitoring committee under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary and seven members including Director General of Police.
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| Mobile phone tower in maoist area |
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has approved the project cost, and 60 towers are expected to be operationalised within 12 months. This is a part of the proposal cleared by Central Government in August 2014, to erect as many as 2,199 mobile network service towers in Naxal-affected areas of the country. Of a total 60 towers to be erected in Maharashtra, 37 will be in Gadchiroli, 17 in Gondia, and six in Chandrapur district.
Sandip Patil, Superintendent of Police (SP), Gadchiroli, told ‘The Hitavada’ that the development would benefit Intelligence gathering and operational utility. According to him, the towers would be heplful on operational and personal fronts. On operational front, informers will be able to pass on the information to Intelligence personnel easily and quickly. This would help the cops in launching operation against Naxals swiftly. Currently, in absence of telecommunication towers, informers have to travel through the jungle for long distance to get mobile network connectivity and then they are able to pass on the information. This delay gives time to Naxals for movement and cops fail to locate the extremists, said Patil.
On personal front, availability of network will help field staff to connect with their family and loved ones. This will reduce psychological pressure on the field staff, Patil said. All towers would be erected at police post or the premises of security establishments. It may be recalled that Naxals had blown off around five mobile towers in last five years in affected districts in Nagpur Division.
Another senior police officer said that there was no proper communication system in Naxal-affected area and informers were fed up with travelling long distances to reach out to Intelligence officials. “A few of the combing operations based on Intelligence inputs failed due to time consumed in information sharing process,” he said. There is another advantage also for cops once the towers are operationalised. “Naxals, too, can use the network against security forces. Once they use it, they can be tracked through mobile surveillance and tracking systems,” added another official.
The towers would be erected by BSNL’s Universal Social Obligation Fund (USOF). Naxal strongholds like Asaralli and Zinganoor in Sironcha, Manne Rajaram in Bhamragarh, Murumgaon, Gyarapatti, and other places in Gadchiroli district are expected to now come under mobile telecommunication service coverage.
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