Free-for-all on power poles makes cities look unsmart
An increasing number of electricity poles covered with thick webs of all sorts of dangerously tangled wires and cables have fast emerged as ugly patches in most Uttar Pradesh towns, many of which are being developed into smart cities.
While the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) remains in a fix on whether and how to regulate the use of its electricity poles, private telecom and cable operators have a field day drawing their cables and wires through these poles to give telephone, broadband and cable TV connections to consumers with impunity.
In the process, a large number of electricity poles have not only started looking ugly with the ever-increasing tangle of wires and cables laid by different operators over them, but the situation also makes power faults more frequent and their rectification even more difficult.
“The power supply in our locality often trips from the poles. When the power staff come to repair the breakdown, they find it extremely difficult to place the ladder on the pole and locate their electricity cable that is lost is in the cobweb,” said Raj Kumar Bhasin, a resident of Aishbagh locality.
Bhasin has been regularly writing to UPPCL authorities for last several months to draw their attention to the problem but in vain.
“They do not even reply to my queries as to whether the private operators pay any fee in lieu of using the electricity poles, what to speak of any action,” he said.
According to additional chief secretary (Energy) and UPPCL chairman Arvind Kumar, the issue of regulating the use of electricity poles by other service providers has been discussed several times in the past but no decision has been taken so far.
“Private companies using our poles is certainly an issue and discussions have also been held on whether to charge some fee from them, but no decision could be taken,” he said.
UPPCL’s fear, according to those in the know of things, is that once it starts charging a fee from them, the private telecom and cable operators will stake claim to using the electricity poles legally and this might worsen the situation.
Stressing the need for launching a crackdown on private telecom and cable operators by removing their illegal cables from electricity poles, another UPPCL official said, “On the one hand, we are being asked to take overhead wires and poles underground in many areas in towns being developed as smart cities. On the other hand, our electricity poles tangled with so many wires and cables give such an ugly look.”
Some states, he claimed, were already charging a fixed amount as fee from private operators for letting them use the government-owned discoms’ electricity poles or launch campaigns from time to time to remove illegal wires and cables from their posts.
“Private operators should ideally erect their own poles as BSNL did, but they do not do this to save on cost,” he alleged.