Kawas and Malwa came, literally, as midnight calls. The two Barmer villages that were to make national headlines for getting flooded informed me about the disaster through calls well past midnight. Kheraj was barely clinging on to his roof as he called me, the waters swirling around him. And the Malwa call came from the village mosque.

When I first picked up the mobile I couldn’t quite comprehend the number on the screen. Kawas was on the mobile network as I knew it. And in rural India mobile network means BSNL. And since the Kawas number was known, it was easy to pinpoint the call. But it was the Malwa one that bothered, since I couldn’t place the service provider. Until then Malwa was known as the best milk producer and for the fact that one of its boys had gone on to become an IG of Police. But now it was to be the village to experience the worst disaster to befall the desert. By morning both numbers died out, but the Malwa one bothered me no end. Months later, at BSNL’s state-level interaction with parliamentarians, I raised this issue, only to find a perplexed headquarters. The entire hierarchy looked embarrassed when it was confirmed to them that a private service provider played a major part in rescue operations when BSNL was not even providing coverage in that area. They promised action, and soon.

I cite this example of, literally, life and death. And the importance of communications. In any disaster relief operations, the first things you’d see will be army jawans with their ANPRC sets, making contact with outlying areas and gathering more information. And the reason I cite the Malwa example is I lived that call and all that followed. I also cite this example because there is an enormous demand for BSNL coverage in the area. Rural India depends on BSNL for its network. And in a situation such as Malwa, BSNL did not exist. It was perplexing, but what happened at BSNL in the past few months is even more perplexing, and distressing.

... contd.