Mobile phones ring in Kupwara’s remotest villages along LoC

Two decades after the launch of mobile telephony in Jammu and Kashmir, cell towers have been erected in three remote villages in Kupwara district, giving cellular connectivity and hope for a better future to about 10,000 locals.

The three villages – Machil, Dudi and Posh Wari – are located 100 to 160 km from Srinagar, the summer capital of J&K which got mobile connectivity on August 20, 2003.

But as these villages are in close proximity to the Line of Control (LoC) and often witness firing and shelling along the LoC, the task became tougher for the district administration that had to get a lot of clearances, especially from the Army, to provide cellular services.