As a millennial living in a metropolitan city, I have access to thousands of luxurious items, swanky restaurants and posh surroundings. I can enjoy a real-time experience in a multi-storeyed mall, window shop or scroll through fashion apparels on an e-commerce website.
With so many options to choose from, I often get stuck while narrowing down on what I want to buy. There is absolutely no dearth of choice for a person living in, say Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or even Chennai. Mainland India, in other words.
I recently visited one of the remotest part of India, Havelock islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which is 2,566 kilometres away from New Delhi.
Havelock which has an estimated population of around 6,500 people is home to exotic beaches, seafood, mangrove forests and rich marine life. However, upon my arrival there I was shocked to see how its people live with abysmally poor internet connection.??
It is 2018 and 5G mobile networks are expected to hit India by 2022. And here in Havelock Islands even catching hold of a 2G network is spotty at best. This is a stark reminder of the fact that the secluded islands have been left behind by governments in terms of development.
To reach the largest islands of Andaman, you have to hop on one of the government-operated ferries or private cruise from Port Blair and take a two hour sea ride.
Photo: Havelock Islands in Andaman & Nicobar Islands/ Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
While in Port Blair you will have intermittent access to internet if you are a BSNL user; In Havelock you are completely cut off from the digital world. You can’t make calls, you can’t get calls and you are at the disposal of Wi-Fi in resorts that offer a humble speed of 1 Mbps!
In this peaceful union territory, people are engaged in fishing, tourism and government jobs to earn a livelihood. A person in Port Blair earns a monthly income of Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000. Out of this, the rental accommodation costs anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000. Hence, the standard of living of consumers here is very minimalistic.
As we ferried through the unruffled sea,?we met locals?who told Indiatimes?what it is like to live without internet in 2018. With negligible shops in Havelock, buying even a packet of chips might seem like an uphill task.
Havelock Islands Port/ Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
A main market in the centre of Port Blair will provide you with almost all items necessary to run a household but with little variety and at steep cost. Residents of Port Blair and Havelock are keen on ordering online but delivering to an island sans-data is quite a herculean task.
Customers living in Havelock either have to pay a visit to Port Blair via a ferry and then go to the Gandhinagar Wholesale market where they can buy daily products. Or they order online and wait patiently for the order to arrive.
Right from a packet of chips to a dog bone or even a car tyre, islanders order almost anything and everything online if their internet connectivity enables them to do so.
There is a need for kitchen chimneys, electronic items, pedigree, diapers, daily essentials, soaps and shampoos and even diving material.
An islander, Sahiba who handles accounts at Andaman Bubbles (that offers scuba diving courses) has been ordering online since 2014. Although, she prefers using the Amazon app, erratic and slow network makes it quite difficult.
A broadband connection acts as her driving force but abysmally poor internet connection can sometimes get on her nerves!
“My first purchase was a Sony digital camera that costed around Rs 8,000. If you go around Havelock, you will see that a couple of shops provide only swimming costumes, beachwear and shell items for tourists. Since most of the people who live here are Bengalis, there are chances you will find Bengali and Banarsi sarees. Apart from that there is nothing.” she said.
Photo: A resident of Havelock, Sahiba shares how she orders online with poor internet/Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
Earlier, when Amazon didn’t make a delivery in Havelock islands, she had to order products from the Port Blair office and then ask someone to keep the packages for her until she traveled to the mainland to collect them.
“I have stayed in Chennai for two years. So I know the products here not only are limited but very expensive as well. We get limited fruits and veggies in Havelock and they are not even fresh.”
While a tourist may surely get juicy crabs and lip-smacking prawns to eat, apart from that buying grocery items and regular vegetables might empty a person's pockets.
Sahiba mostly orders fancy clothes online. Electronic items like cameras, battery, mobile charger and fishing equipments like a fishing rod is what she has ordered until now. Recently, she has started ordering toiletries like a pressure cooker and a microwave is also on the cards.
She is fond of apparels and clothing but right now she is only dependent on one website. “I have skimmed through the clothing collection of Myntra however, since they don’t make a delivery to my doorstep, it feels like a headache to order from any other website.”?If other portals start delivering here then it would be so much convenient for us, she says.
Photo: Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
It is a challenge for even the e-commerce websites to deliver a product from Chennai to a remote customer in Havelock on Cash-On-Delivery basis. Hence, the locals have only net banking as a payment option.
Mobile Point On Sale (MPOS) payment method also requires a strong Wi-Fi connection that a local rarely gets. Also, if a customer is not happy with the product, he/she will have to return it to Port Blair for the e-commerce website to collect it.
Photo: Amit Adhikari who works as a Marketing manager at Wild orchid resort in Havelock/ Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
Another 25-year-old resident, Amit Adhikari makes all his purchases using the Wi-Fi in his office, which is the Wild Orchid resort in Havelock. He doesn’t have an internet connection at home because it doesn’t even work, he has to make all his personal purchases from his workplace.
Recently, he ordered a tent for campaigning as he likes to travel. He earns a salary of Rs 30,000 per month and mostly likes ordering mobile phones, camera lenses or laptops that aren’t even available in Havelock.
E-wallet apps like Paytm is used only for mobile recharge because again mobile data never really works. Direct Broadcast television providers like Tata Sky and Dish TV can’t also provide residents with their favorite channels.
On the contrary, people in Port Blair prefer COD due to taxation and network connectivity issues.
Photo: Port Blair/Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
Unprecedented rains can play a spoilsport and delay the order for as long as 30 days. A local shopkeeper selling clocks in Port Blair told Indiatimes that he had ordered a sewing machine costing Rs 8,000 for his personal use a year ago. However, the order arrived a month later and was not as per his expectations.
“It was very small in size. The final product didn’t match the online expectations. I tried to return it however, I couldn’t go about the procedure.”
While another shopkeeper selling suitcases said,
“We prefer ordering in bulk from Chennai only because we have a robust internal network there. We know our people and it arrives on time. Online process seems cumbersome to us, we don’t find it user-friendly.”
While enjoying a beautiful sunset in Port Blair, a singer at one of the resorts who belongs to Mizoram told us (on condition of anonymity) that she ordered a pair of 'Steve Madden' shoes online but that order also took almost a month to arrive. She makes use of the resort’s Wi-Fi to place an order which works only during the wee hours in the reception area.?
Photo: Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
However, she is not a fan of online shopping due to the poor network. She gets all her clothes from New Delhi where her family lives.
Despite the connectivity hassles, many people said that they wanted to shop online because of the wide variety it offers and the prices are also reasonable. A shopkeeper in Port Blair said that electronics cost much cheaper on the website. The order reached him within four days and since then he had been ordering clothes and cameras enthusiastically.
Photo: Kriti Gupta for Indiatimes
Every time I needed to reach out to my family back home, I had to go to the hotel’s reception to access the internet. A paper slip with a username and password was given to me for the network connection that worked only during odd hours.?
Inconsistent WhatsApp calls give the tourists some hope in Havelock whereas normal calls in Port Blair can be made only from the hotel entrance. The locals are eagerly waiting for other telecom providers like Jio to venture into this remote part of India so that they can also enjoy the benefits and eagerly join the rest of digital India in the 21st century.