'Poor internet in village, we aren't coming home'

BENGALURU: Politicians may soon be confronted with demands for bijli, sadak, paani and Wi-Fi during elections. These will not emanate from urban constituents, but from their primary vote bank: the masses from Bharat.
If anecdotal evidence from villages close to Bengaluru is an indicator of an emerging trend, it seems parents don’t get to see their college-going children studying in nearby towns due to lack of good internet connectivity at home.
Parents in villages near Tumakuru, 70 km from Bengaluru, are a worried lot. Reason: Smartphones are keeping their college-going children away from home during weekends. Hostellers and day scholars prefer to be in Tumakuru simply because their villages have poor or no connectivity.
Tumakuru is an educational hub. Five major institutions and smaller ones offer professional and other courses that attract thousands of students from surrounding and far-off villages. Like Chandra Shekar K, a first-year PU student from Kolala village, 30 km from Tumakuru. The 17-year-old can’t take his hands off his new smartphone.
"I bought it out of curiosity as my college friends were always on their smartphones. Now I can't do without it. I love to be on Facebook, and aim at having more than 1,000 names on my friends list," Chandra Shekar says. That, predictably, keeps him away from home, where internet connectivity is annoyingly slow.
With basic Android handsets available for just Rs 2,000, smartphones are a must-have for students. They either opt for EMIs or borrow money to buy phones. Once the phone is in hand, the next lookout is offers on the data connection. It helps that service providers have competitive rates.
"One of them came up with an offer of Rs 10 for the SIM card with Rs 50 talk time along 1 GB data free for a month. About 20 students from my class grabbed the offer. I feel disconnected when I am in my village. So I skip weekly visits to home as I don't want to miss the online action even for two days," says Kiran Kumar KB, a student of the Siddaganga group of institutions.
Tumakuru has broadband options and plenty of recharging stations.
Govardhan S, a telecom service provider, says MG Road, a shopping hub in Tumakuru, had not more than five shops selling mobiles five years ago. "Today, there are 300 mobile shops on this stretch, and data recharge is big business," he says.
Another attraction is Wi-Fi enabled campuses. Take Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology that has more than 2,500 students. Until recently, the campus offered free and unlimited Wi-Fi to students on the campus. However, students started downloading movies, forcing the college management – which received a broadband bill running into lakhs – to fix a limit on usage. The craze for free Wi-Fi is such that many students have rented rooms around the campus to make maximum use of the service.
"Some of my friends save money given by parents for food and travel to buy mobiles or data. We ask mobile stores and data service providers to alert us on the best offers available," says Navya BR, who travels 55 km every day from her village near Doddaballapur. "We girls are nowhere behind. It's a competition among us to make more friends on FB and getting more likes for photographs and other things we post."
Is the stranglehold of the smartphone over small-town kids good or bad? Faculty is divided. Some say mobile addiction has become a major distraction in studies. "Students are busy chatting on mobiles even during class hours. They are unaware of the financial burden they are causing to their parents ," says Vani K, a psychology lecturer at a college.
But some feel the mobile is a weapon that helps village kids catch up with their big-city counterparts.

Prakash S, a lecturer of media studies, says the village kids are quick in grasping technology. "We have to just assist them in the right way. They are getting exposed to information faster. I have seen them debate current issues based on the reading they have done on the internet and social networking sites. They are keen to know what the world is talking about on Twitter as well. The government should take measures to provide proper mobile network and data connectivity at the village level."