Around 400 telephone subscribers under the telco´s Banepa exchange are without telephone service for the past five months.[break]
Cable theft is frequent in Kushadevi area and Khopasi areas of the district. Around 130 telephone lines in Kushadevi and 250 in Khopasi remain disrupted for the past five months.
“Poor network problem is perennial in Nepal Telecom´s mobile service but now even the landline service is non-functional. We are not able to even use the ADSL (internet) service due to the disruption,” lamented Tanka Parsad Humagain, a resident. He further added that despite their drawing the attention of Nepal Telecom´s regional directorate about the problem, nothing was done to resolve the problem, so they were left with no other option than to shut down the office.
This is not the first time the residents of Kushadevi and Khopasi faced landline telephone disruption. Earlier also, the service was down for about a month. Cable theft is a major problem in Kushadevi, Khopasi, Chaukot, Bashdol, Ghogaichaur, Nala and Rabhiopi among other areas but the telco has not been able to control theft.
Telephone cables have been stolen for over 100 times in the past five years. Theives stole cable from one particular place for over ten times, according the the chief of Nepal Telecom Banepa branch, Shivaji Sah. “Over 2,000 meters of cable worth around Rs 13 million has been stolen till date," he said.
Nepal Telecom has installed anti-burglary sirens at various localites to stop the theft but they have not been able to catch the thieves so far. "Immediately after the siren goes off, we rush to the area, but the thieves are never found," officials at the branch said.
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