Kech is the second biggest district of Balochistan after Quetta with a population of around 909,116, according to the census of 2017. In recent days, one witnesses infrastructural development in the city, but other internal departments are not as developed as ought to be. As we live in a growing era where almost everything is run with internet, Turbat faces grave woes in respect of internet.
Unfortunately, disconnection of data services has pulled down the encouraged students of the district towards making new experiments. They are disconnected to most part of the growing trends and knowledge. In fact, they cannot go attractively with their assignments due to disconnectivity. For a massive population, it becomes a question; why is the internet disconnected in the second biggest district of Balochistan (Kech)?
Most of the students, who cannot afford much for an advanced education, try to have admissions in schools, colleges and the University of Turbat as the city is considered as a key point for nearby living masses to continue their higher education too. Many students try to get admissions in other parts of Pakistan and foreign countries for a better education. In Interviews for foreign universities, they [the varsity administrations] keep them online. But, with no data and a poor PTCL internet, it is not possible for the students of the city to give their interviews without interruption.
In an interview with one such student, Shameem Khuda Bakhsh said, “I applied for King’s University and it was a credibility interview conducted by UKEC and I missed it due to disconnection of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) broadband at the same time.” He looked at me for a while and added, “Not only me, but more than 100 students missed the opportunity, however, the issue was same.”
There are thousands of scholarships available in sites for poor students, but it needs a good internet connection to get the required awareness and filling the requisite forms. “We [the residents of Kech district] are the upcoming sad generation with no better opportunities and internet.”
Though PTCL provides us internet, but every poor cannot afford Rs. 3000 per month for the internet which works only to send message through WhatsApp. Its connections are many in number which makes it very slow. When one uses it for educational purposes by visiting different sites, he has to wait for hours to know little bit and then the load shedding interrupts. When electricity is back, he again has to begin from the word go.
Lack of internet has lifted Kech district way backward. Students need to have visits from villages to city just for searching materials which are related to their assignments, and must have double visits if to mail them to the instructors. Turbat’s most population cannot afford visits from their villages to the city time and again for one single assignment due to grave poverty.
Undoubtedly, internet provides a better source of students’ higher education. Even though, poor students can earn fees of the institutions through freelancing websites. Many of the poor students arrange their academic and self expenses including the monthly budgets for the families too by the source of online earning platforms. To work there, a speedy connection is required, but Kech is totally deprived of it.
Finally, when we read an emerging book, we get trickled inside us to have more books of the same author, and we lose our hopes after getting “Server Timeouts” notification of the searched words. The world has reached out to the moon, but Kech district has just become familiar with the concept of internet. In fact, with the passage of time it has become the change of an old version to a new one.
Truly, a poor can never afford to buy a good and out of budget book in hardcopy. But, what if the poor residents are provided with data internet to at least download some good books with a weekly internet package casting him lesser money and more benefits?
