Pedestrians beware! Abandoned cables ahead

Y. Maheswara Reddy | NT

Bengaluru: For pedestrians and motorists hanging or abandoned cables are a safety hazard. The menace is prevalent even in the central business district, which witnesses frequent VIP movements.

There are heaps of cables lying on the footpath right next to the Police Commissioner’s office on Infantry Road. Cable wires lying abandoned on the footpath or dangling from trees along these footpaths are a common sight in the CBD.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorities have miserably failed to clear those unclaimed and abandoned cables and penalize the cable operators responsible for this mess. These unclaimed and abandoned cables have made lives miserable for the pedestrians.

“Despite repeated observations or orders on the pathetic condition of footpaths, the BBMP engineers have failed to fix this problem. It is the responsibility of the jurisdictional BBMP engineers to remove cables that have become a nuisance or a hurdle for the pedestrians. The BBMP higher authorities have to instruct ward engineers to remove such cable but nothing is being done in this regard,’’ said Sai Datta, a social activist who played a role in moving a public interest litigation (PIL) in the High Court against illegal hoardings, banners and posters in the city.

Expressing concern over the hanging cables on Benson Cross Road, Sindhu Menon, a resident, has said there was an order banning cable operators from using trees for routing the cables. “There are so many cables on Benson Cross Road lying carelessly and untidily, causing accidents to pedestrians and animals,’’ Sindhu said.

It may be recalled that the BBMP authorities were set to act against haphazard overhead cables as per Karnataka High Court order, but after the Central Government’s order in October 2021 permitting telecom service providers to draw over ground optical fiber cables, they are going easy. According to an estimate, there are 25,000 km overhead cables dangling overlapping at many areas in the city. Experts opine that the Central Government’s order may discourage telecom service providers to draw underground optical fiber cables.

The dangling cables have become a nuisance for pedestrians on MG Road, Infantry Road, Benson Cross Road, Millers Road, Coles Road, Indiranagar Double Road, Queen’s Road, Ali Asker Road, Marathahalli, HAL Airport Road, Bellandur. “We had to lodge a first information report (FIR) against telecom service providers. We took police help to remove dangling cables on Sarjapur Main Road, Kasavanahalli Main Road, Haralur Road, AET-Doddakannelli Road, Kadubeesanahalli Road, Bellandur Main Road, Palm Avenue Road, Chikkanayakanahalli-Guttahalli Road and Kariyammana Agrahara Road. Now, the menace has come down to some extent,’’ said Vishnu Prasad of Bellandur Development Forum.