Kolkata: Mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will act tough on the cable operators, who have been negligent in
removal of unwanted cables that dangle from electric poles, posing risk of fire.
"I had held two meetings with the cable operators and have asked them to identify unwanted cable wires and remove them immediately. But the operators have sat idle in most of the cases. I will again
hold a meeting in the month of November and will set them a
time frame for removing the cable wires. If they continue to be negligent then we will dismantle all wires (both functional and non-functional) on our own," Hakim said in support of a proposal from councillor Jui Biswas on the problems faced by common people due to overground cables at the monthly meeting of KMC.
Biswas, who is the councillor of Ward 81 in New Alipore, referred to a few incidents during the monsoon where electric poles collapsed due to the heavy load of wires. In one such incident at New Alipore petrol pump, a child had a lucky escape with an electric pole collapsing very close to him.
"We have already taken up a pilot project at Alipore and Harish Mukherjee Road and are coming up with cable ducts so that all wires in an electric pole can be put into it. The work involves a lot of funds, so we will take it up in phases. The main roads in the city will be covered first and then the lanes will be taken up," Hakim said.
Tray system model will be adopted for the slums where cables dangling dangerously have been posing risk of fire. CESC has implemented this model at a slum in Kolkata and all utility wires have been clubbed in an organised manner. "We will follow this model at other slums in the city as well," Hakim added.
Majority of the slum residents in the city have taken up their own electric metres, but the old wires for electric connection from poles have not been removed.
It may be mentioned that all overground cable wires have been removed and put underground at New Town.