New Delhi
Due to the internet shutdown and communications blockade, telecom companies have lost 1.4 million subscribers in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) , according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The data accessed by Anadolu Agency shows that through last November, the telecom sector recorded negative growth of 12.59% in the region, with 1.46 million people surrendering their phone connections.
The communication blockade in the region began last August 5 when India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy and split it into two union territories.
In the first month of shutdown, the region started showing negative growth of 1.14%, with 132,334 subscribers giving up their mobile connections.
Ironically, while there were no mobile internet and broadband services, residents claim that they are constantly getting bills from telecom companies for services they have not used.
Several subscribers said they were hoping that charges for the period of communication shutdown will be waived as was done in the aftermath of 2016 street protests and 2014 floods in Kashmir. In July 2016, during a lockdown following the killing of the militant group Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani, 171,271 people disconnected their services.
“People could not recharge their phones or use any services, which led to an exponential rise in the number of disconnections,” said TRAI officials. At that time, the overall subscriber base of telecom companies fell from 10 million to 9.5 million.
Even as the Indian government recently restored partial internet services in the region after almost six months of the clampdown, Kashmiri businessmen say, they are still struggling to revive their businesses. Recently the government restored access to 2G services and access to 1,485 whitelisted websites.
The internet ban in the region is believed to be the longest communications blackout in the history of any democratic country
For Hashim Javaid, 32, a travel agent based in Srinagar, the summer capital, there has been no income over the past few months. The only earning member of the family of five, who earned his living making bookings for tourists, has been surviving, with his family, on their meager savings.
“Due to an internet shutdown, our business has gone haywire. There was no way to receive online bookings, to communicate with tourists and transfer money. All this led to him eventually losing customers,” he told Anadolu Agency over the phone.
But what has hurt him more is that despite all the hardships he faced due to the internet shutdown, he is being forced to pay high internet bills to avoid disconnection.
“For the last few months, when there has been no internet and my business almost shut down, I am paying $17 each month for my Airtel dongle and another $14 each for the Airtel and BSNL phone, that I was using for bookings,” said Javaid.—Agencies
