Students in Odisha’s violence-hit Sambalpur travel miles to avail internet services
By Mahendra Darjee
Bhubaneswar, April 20: As the violence-hit Sambalpur city in Odisha is gradually limping back to normalcy, internet services continue to remain snapped in an attempt to curb communal tensions that erupted during the Hanuman Jayanti celebrations on April 12.
The state government-imposed internet outage has severely affected students who were taking their online classes on Zoom, Skype and other social media apps.
Reports said many students who depended on YouTube and other sites for their lessons are now left in distress due to the internet restrictions. Reports from the city said dozens of students are now forced to travel all the way to border districts for online classes.
“I’m doing my B.Tech and also preparing for competitive exams. Internet services have been suspended for nearly a week now. As a result, I am missing my online classes. With no other option, I have to walk to the Sambalpur-Angul border just for internet,” said a student Tapan Kumar
“I sit in an open field and take my online classes on the border. What else can we do? We don’t even know when the ban will be lifted,” he added.
Similarly, another student Gopabandhu said, “We all have come here to Boudh district border just for the internet. Students are all sitting in open fields and highways for their online classes. All the students who depended on the internet for their preparation and studies are now going through unwanted problems and are missing out on their lessons.”
Many people, who depended on the internet for their businesses are also going through annoying problems. The footfalls in shopping malls have dropped significantly. Individual stores are no less affected as almost all of them transact more than half their businesses though e-payments.
“Now-a-days, most of the customers prefer e-payments. They swipe their debit and credit cards or Unified Payment Interface (UPI) platforms to buy products. Now that the city has no internet services,we have received serious setbacks. The business volume has drastically gone down,” said a leading garment businessman.
