KOLKATA: The mammoth task of decluttering lamp posts in the city by removing defunct optic fibre cables that have turned much of the city’s skyline into an eyesore got underway in earnest with eight teams comprising a dozen people hitting the road from Tuesday morning.
Two more teams will join the initiative in a couple of days to clear out 10 stretches in the first phase of the drive. Two other stretches have been identified for the second phase that is expected to begin some time next month.
Spearheaded by a joint forum of cable operators, the clean-up drive began along several key roads in south, central and north Kolkata on Tuesday.
In south Kolkata, the operation began from Lake Kali Bari on Southern Avenue. The team will move into Sarat Bose Road and then continue till Minto Park before turning left and heading towards Exide crossing under the AJC Bose Road flyover, clearing defunct cables along the way. Also in south Kolkata, work is underway to clear Hazra Road and Priyanath Mullick till Bhowanipore post office.
In central Kolkata, teams have been deployed along two parallel roads — SN Banerjee and Lenin Sarani — between Moulali and Esplanade to clear the mesh of cables. In north Kolkata, teams began work between Galiff Street and Bagbazar and from Shyambazar to Bhupen Bose Avenue. The latter will move along Central Avenue to reach Exide crossing.
“Most of the multi-system operators, internet service providers and telecom operators have tagged the live cables. Those cables that are not tagged are being cut and dumped on the pavement. They will then be loaded on trucks and taken to the dumpyard in Dhapa,” said All Bengal Cable TV & Broadband Operators’ Joint Forum convenor Tapash Das, who oversaw the drive in south Kolkata.
In several sections, the number of cables were reduced to a third. “In most sections, there will be around 8-10 live cables. The number of defunct cables is four-five times more,” said Das.
Work on two more stretches — Ramesh Mitter Road and Elgin Road — will begin later in the week. At 500m per day, each team will clean up a 1km stretch of road in two days. Das estimates the 30km clean-up will take around a week to 10 days.
In the next phase, cable lines along APC Road and AJC Bose Road will be cleaned up along with other road stretches in south Kolkata.
The drive also led to some service disruptions. Operators said in a drive as extensive as the current one, some disruptions were inevitable. But they assured that with representatives of MSOs, ISPs, telcos and even CESC working in tandem, these issues would be promptly sorted out.
