Vijayawada: Overhead electrical cables are posing a threat to the public at many places in the city.
Though strict rules were in place to ensure that proper distance is to be maintained between the electric cables and the houses, they are not being followed. A minimum of 8 feet distance should be maintained in case of low-tension wires and a distance of 2.5 metres should be maintained in case of high-tension wires.
The building owners are flouting this rule conveniently while construction buildings. At many places, the electric cables are within the reach of the people from the buildings posing danger to them.
The situation is even worse in One Town area where the cables are spread like a mesh. The area is densely populated with a lot of commercial establishments.
As the Cable TV and broadband service provi-ders also use the electric poles for their network, different cables are also mixed up making it difficult to distinguish the electric cables between them.
The locals of Brahmana Street in One Town area complained that many cables are entangled to the electric poles. “There are too many coiled cables hanging loosely from the electric pole and we do not know which cable is used for power and broadband or Cable TV. Loosely hanging cables are even causing accidents sometimes,” they said.
Superintendent engineer of APSPDCL, Vijayawada, M. Vijay Kumar, said it is very difficult for them to physically inspect every building under construction to check whether they are maintaining the distance from electric cables or not.
The ideal solution would be to lay underground cables but in a place like One Town area, it is very difficult to reconfigure the entire network, he said. It is also a cumbersome process as it involves huge money and equipment, he added.
Mr Kumar also said, “Usage of electric cables by broadband service providers also became a problem for us. Some of them are paying us Rs 20 per pole but some of th-em are using them without any permission. The issue is under discussion and a decision would be taken soon to check other cables on electric cables,” he added.
