Serendipity : Musings of an Islander

Unemployment, Hunger and accumulating EMI’s stare at islands self employed autowallas By Debkumar Bhadra The COVID-19 pandemic, associated lockdown and restriction on economic activity impacted different sections of the society in varied proportions. While the government is staring at a steep economic slide, the working class specifically those who have been working daily to make ends meet are reeling under abject poverty due to loss of job. The lower strata of the society comprising daily earners have been hit the hardest. Autorikshaw, Jeep, Taxi operators are one such affected group who have been at the receiving end since day one of the pandemic.   According to 2018-19 edition of Basic Statistics there are 4738 registered autorikshaw, 31766  LMV’s including Cars/Taxi Omni & Jeep out of which an estimated 15-20% is engaged in commercial (Point-to-Point) transport sector,  257 Government owned State Transport Service (STS) Busses and 143 Privately owned busses ca...

Open Invitation to demonstrate speed prescribed under QoS BB service regulation is provided Dear Sir It is submitted that am a BSNL subscriber having a BSNL Postpaid Mobile (943428xxxx) connection since July 2003, BSNL Landline Phone (258xxx) since March 2005 and BSNL Broadband (BB) connection since November 2008 in my name. During the past decade and a half I have been a loyal customer always paying bills within due date. But won’t claim am doing something extraordinary because I believe when service has been availed, timely payment is an obligation which I must honour as a customer. However, when I look at the service side, specifically during the past year or so, it has been a continuous downslide on your part. Be it 2G, 3G, LL or BB service, frequent call drops, poor voice quality and non-conforming data speed is all am getting in the name of servic e. Highly unstable and below standard connection speed, combined with high latency ranging between 600-1000ms and packe...

The business of Ullu – Banana… By Debkumar Bhadra ­­ Murari Lall needs to build a structure for which he need 10 bamboo poles, neither one more, nor one less. He finds there is only one company in the town namely BEESYNL selling bamboo poles @ Rs 100/- a piece with the condition that the order has to be placed online and the entire quantity required has to be bought altogether and the company will deliver it at the doorstep and that bill once raised has to be paid. Finding no other alternative, Murari Lall agrees to the monopolistic company's conditions and buys 10 poles required to build the structure. Company sends them on a truck to his home. The truck arrives. Against required 10, Murari finds only 5 poles have arrived loaded on an open body truck. Upon asking, the driver said 5 poles might have fallen off the truck hence consider them lost in transit. He then goes on to add, press refresh, the company will resend them. Since the quant...

Electricity Billing and Payment, stuck in the past! By Debkumar Bhadra According to local media reports, Electricity Department, A&N Administration is contemplating raising electricity bills by direct meter reading or provisional bill in the islands ostensibly to ramp up the cumbersome process, which as of now is labour intensive and require repeated visits to customer premise, first for taking meter reading and then for distribution of printed bills. With the instant initiative, it seems the department aims to finish meter reading, billing and distribution all in one go. It is a welcome step, but addresses the actual billing-payment issue only partially. Let me explain . According to data accessed from Basic Statistics, A&N Islands have 1,33,990 consumers during the year 2018-19 of which 91,270 is in South Andaman, 32,660 in N&M Andaman and 10,060 in the Nicobar District. Every month personnel from the electricity department visit each of these indivi...

Islanders caught as collateral in the lockdown By Debkumar Bhadra With less than a week remaining into the 21 day lockdown, everyone seems to wonder if the lockdown will be lifted or extended! Well for a diverse country of 1.3 billion, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all answer, specifically when the choice is between life and livelihood. On one hand there is a perceived risk of undoing the commendable job of containing the deadly novel corona virus, on the other it is the country’s economy that is at stake . While many states are already arguing for extending the lockdown, an update shared by the Chief Secretary to the UT Administration of Andaman and Nicobar has brought some respite. “All ten earlier positive cases are now negative after treatment. They will be shifted from hospital to institutional quarantine for 2 weeks” read the late night tweet by @ChetanSanghi. The islands which so far accounted for 11 corona positive cases, after ten of them declared neg...

Not to worry! Ponder? Yes By Debkumar Bhadra It is apparent most of us would lend support to the PM’s call for a 9 minute sojourn with earthen lamps, candles and their likes at 9 pm on Sunday .   This has come at a time when we are most concerned about personal hygiene. It is obvious for one to reach out for hand sanitizers because they are convenient. But one must remember that alcohol  -based hand sanitizers are classified as Class I Flammable Liquid substances, which means they have a flash point of less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus before striking the match stick or approaching an open fire, it is necessary  to exercise caution with sanitizers as we do with any other flammable substances. Another thing to keep in mind is that washing hands with soap (cake, bar or liquid) and water is recommended. For non-clinical domestic situations, use sanitizers when running water and soap is not available. Since it is human tendency to go for what...

Dated : 29/03/2020 To Shri Mohammed Tabraiz Member, Court Monitoring Committee (COVID GoI SOP implementation related matter) By email : mttabraiz@gmail.com Sir Being a concerned citizen, I consider it my responsibility to bring the problems faced by fellow men rendering their service during the covid lock-down. I am therefore submitting the following few lines before you. Let me come straight to the point, according to the MHA NDMA Order # 4-30/2020-DM-I(A) dated March 24, 2020 Private Security Service has been exempted from closure (See annexure to the MHA NDMA Order, Point # 4 (j)). As such a good number of personnel employed as private security guards are rendering service amid the corona lockdown. They mostly come from remote locations and security service being a 24X7 affair, are often required to report for duty during odd hours. Similarly they get relieved off from duty again during odd hours. Due to non availability of transport, these securi...