Tangled: optical fibre cables a knotty' problem

Bengaluru: Garden City Bengaluru may have transformed into an IT City, but in the process it has lost much of its charm to roads heavily laden with traffic,    garbage piles at street corners , dug up roads and cables carelessly strung over trees. Besides the civic agencies that dig up roads for  repairs or laying of pipes, companies laying optical fibre cables too often dig them up indiscriminately to lay their network, placing  motorists and pedestrians at risk. Many have been injured in accidents caused by the dug up roads or loosely hanging cables.

Going by Mr N.R. Ramesh, a former corporator and city BJP spokesman, who has closely followed the OFC saga in the city, between 1999 and 2005 when the IT boom was at its peak, the companies  were given a free hand to lay their network without paying a penny. Later, 31 OFC operators entered into a memorandum of understanding with the BBMP and pledged to declare the full extent of their network to allow it to collect a fee from them, but they allegedly did not.   Jayamahal corporator, M K Gunashekar claims that the OFC companies have been evasive in declaring the full extent of their networks.

“Although they have been given the additional time they wanted to provide information on their unauthorised network, they have not  to evade paying a fee to the BBMP. This is a huge loss to the agency,” he says.

“Although ducts have been provided  on TenderSure roads to help companies lay their cables  hardly any OFC company has come forward to use the facility. Instead they continue to deface the city with their overhanging cables,” the corporator regrets.

He, however , believes the OFC companies will soon have to fall in line as a committee comprising  members from all parties has been formed to study the subject, following which a GIS based OFC network will be prepared to force them to pay up.

Meanwhile, as roads continue to be dug up during the night for laying the OFCs in some parts of the city , unsuspecting people often meet with accidents the next day. “Due to the digging of roads the traffic is disrupted too,” observes Mr Narendra Kumar, a resident of Banasawadi.

 “I have fallen from my bike and been  injured due to the lack of a cautioning board at the digging site. Also , the roads are not restored even after the laying of the OFC cables and are instead left unattended for weeks both by the companies and the BBMP,” he laments.

The BBMP , which is supposed to collect a restoration fee from the agencies doing the digging to ensure that the roads are restored to avoid inconveniencing the public, does not bother either, he regrets. “Going by the rules permission for digging of roads should be given only during the weekends and on general holidays. But this is blatantly flouted too,” Mr Kumar rues.