Kathmandu. The telephone service has been resumed at Barekot of Jajarkot district for the past two weeks following the special initiative of Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Jagadish Kharel.

Minister Kharel immediately took action and took initiative to resume the service after receiving a complaint at the Ministry about the disruption of telecom services in Barekot. The technical team of Nepal Telecom has resumed the service by repairing the disrupted service.

The telephone service was disrupted after lightning hit a telephone tower of Nepal Telecom at Ratankot of Barekot rural municipality-5 on September 22. More than 10,000 service recipients were affected by this. Due to the disruption of the service, the locals were facing problems in making emergency contact, daily transactions and exchanging family messages.

Prakash Man Singh, a local, said that the telecom service which has been disrupted for the past two weeks has come into operation and this has given a big relief to the locals. He urged the government to take initiative to expand the capacity of the internet service once the telephone service came into operation. According to him, there was a population of 12,000 when the tower was installed. The rural municipality now has a population of 22,000 and the number of internet users has increased, so it is imperative to expand the internet capacity and make the service more effective.

Minister Kharel said that he has taken initiative to resume the telephone service immediately after realizing the problems faced by the people of Jajarkot due to disruption of telephone service. Minister Kharel said that the ministry has directed the bodies concerned to accord special priority to the expansion of service in Dailekh, Jajarkot, Kalikot, Jumla, Humla and Sudurpaschim Province as well as in Madhes Province. He expressed the belief that the government would take all kinds of initiatives to ensure basic communication services to the people.

Director of Nepal Telecom Provincial Directorate, Surkhet, Dr Kamal Lamsal informed that the telephone service which was disrupted in Barkot and surrounding areas has been resumed following technical repair. According to him, the service has been operated by importing equipment including radio equipment and earthing equipment of the telephone tower which was completely damaged by lightning.

Additional technical fields with equipment have been assigned to work for the capacity expansion and quality enhancement of telephone service. Technical manpower has also been mobilized to increase the capacity and quality of internet service.

Director Lamsal said that a new generator will be installed at Gotamkot station to improve the quality of mobile service in Bhurtechula, Sarmi, Kalika and Gotamkot of Rukum West, which have been disrupted in Dolpa district.