Fuel Scarcity Disrupts Wireless Services in Manipur

Imphal (Manipur), Jun 9 : With the economic blockade still continuing in Manipur, the wireless services have virtually collapsed due to fuel scarcity.

The mobile phone service has been adversely affected due to scarcity of diesel needed for running mobile tower generators.

Mobile tower generators in Manipur are mostly run with diesel because of the acute shortage of electricity.

On an average, each tower consumes about 4000 litres of diesel.

“Unlike other states, we are not getting enough electricity to run our towers. So, we are dependent on diesel and we run our diesel generators and because of the blockade we are not able to procure diesel,” said Usharanjan Singh, Zonal Manger of Bharati Infratel.

With the blockade continuing for more than 50 days, there are times when almost 80 mobile towers of Airtel remain non-functional due to non-availability of diesel.

There are around 240 mobile towers of Airtel alone in Manipur and out of these, 20 have become non-operational due to scarcity of diesel.

[ via ANI ]