Television and internet cables wrapped around trees and lamp posts often spill onto walkways as well as roads in Salt Lake, posing a threat to motorists and pedestrians.
Open junction boxes that have electric cables jutting out adorn a majority of lamp posts in Salt Lake. Cables strewn on the roads and open power boxes have killed people in the past.
Metro took a drive through Salt Lake and Sector V and saw cables of various gouges hanging from tree branches, lamp posts, billboard bases and even benches. Multiple coils of wires can be spotted on almost every lamp post, railing and even park benches in Salt Lake.
A mesh of cables tied to a tree in FE Block in Salt Lake.
A snapped cable hangs right in the middle of a cutout of a median in Sector II near BJ Block, close to tank number 9 petrol pump.
This stretch of the Seventh Cross Road which leads towards the PNB crossing and Ultadanga from the Karunamoyee crossing, is one of
the busiest roads in the township.
In Sector V, too, thick coils of cables were spotted wrapped around lamp posts and even benches at bus stands.
Several thick strands of cables were spotted across the road near the Wipro crossing and the situation was similar at College More.
The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) continues to turn a blind eye to the cables — nearly every lamp post has bundles hanging from them — that crisscross roads at dangerously low levels.
Abhishek Ghosh, a resident of Salt Lake who drives to his office in Sector V,
said he had a close shave when one such a cable got tangled in the rear wheel of his motorbike.
Cables hang from lamp posts 1 in CJ Block in Salt Lake.
“I was lucky that I was riding the bike slowly as I was negotiating heavy traffic in Sector V. The wheel suddenly stopped moving and I felt a jerk. I stopped and saw a cable coiled up around the wheel hub near the chain,” said Ghosh, who lives in BJ Block.
As if the cables are not enough, open junction boxes with wires sticking out can be seen in Sectors I, II and III.
Last year, a 12-year-old boy died in Haridevpur on the southern fringes of Calcutta after grabbing a lamppost to regain his balance on a waterlogged street. A few days later a 13-year-old boy was electrocuted in Narkeldanga under similar circumstances. There were more than 21 deaths across the city from electrocution in 2021.
However, the situation has not improved.
A senior BMC official said that they have had multiple meetings with cable and broadband Internet operators as well as MSOs but with limited results.
In Sector V, the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) has started constructing an underground line for cables like the one already in place in New Town.
“We are trying to shift all cables underground,” a senior NDITA official said.
