Walking along the streets of Bengaluru has become scary owing to the presence of poorly maintained wires and exposed electricity infrastructure. In several localities, there are tangled wires hanging from electricity poles and even street light poles. Sometimes, cables snap and fall on the pavement thereby making pedestrians apprehensive about walking on footpaths.
“These wires are very dangerous,” Chandrashekhar Rao, a resident of Basavanagudi said. “In our locality, they have been so for at least one month now. Dodging these wires is much harder during the monsoon season. Moreover, due to their low lying nature, these wires end up blocking entrances and exits of residences.”
Furthermore, the doors to several Ring Main Units (RMU) placed on footpaths are open. Many times, wire can be seen slipping out from them. The doors of control boxes in many transformers are wide open.
“In a place as crowded as Shivajinagar there are wires all over,” Srikanth S., a private employee working in a finance firm located there remarked. “Doors through which electricity infrastructures pass by that are fixed onto foot paths remain open all day long. I do not feel safe when high voltage equipment is left this way in public places such as roadsides especially during rains.”
Sadashivnagar, Hebbal, Indiranagar, Majestic, Jakkur, Yeshwantpur and Rajajinagar have also reported similar complaints apart from these areas.
“Wires have been dangling in our area for four months now,” Ramya Shridhar from Yeshwantpur noted. “During monsoon it can be hazardous to walk on the footpath.”
“We continue to identify and rectify pedestrians’ hazards posed by infrastructure”, Mahantesh Bilagi MD Bescom said.” As soon as we get a call through our help line number at (1912), we come immediately””.
The situation however, has been aggravated further by the presence of Optical Fiber Cables (OFC) alongside electricity lines. In 2023, Energy Minister K.J George had ordered all OFCs which were passing over electrical wires to be removed.
“Thus, we have taken out all OFCs that were going through our poles. The ones on street light poles should be catered for by BBMP”.
