Operators fail to act,MCD snaps overhead cables

Incidentally,the civic body’s action has found favour with many members of the Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI),who feel “it is completely justified because the mess of overhead cables will prove to be an eyesore during the Games”.

The MCD had earlier directed all telecom and cable service operators to remove their respective overhead cables by the end of February this year.

The operators in turn,initially threatened a complete blackout of cable services in Delhi but finally agreed to cooperate with the MCD and sought extra time. The deadline has,however,been extended many times — the final deadline was June 30.

“Although we have not had a formal meeting with the MCD since they started snapping cable lines,the move is actually fair considering they have conducted endless meetings and sent warnings,but the local operators have refused to co-operate,” said Vikky Chaudhary,president,National Cable and Telecom Association.

“Besides,the MCD has taken action in those areas that have the ugliest tangles of overhead cables laid mainly by local cable operators. So while cable television transmission will be affected,there will not be much damage to telecom or internet services,” Chaudhary said.

“While we tried persuading our association members to voluntarily shift their cable lines underground,the local cable operators expressed reluctance to do so,” said Roop Sharma,president,COFI. “This action will hopefully serve as a final warning to operators of other areas,” she said.

Big players like Airtel,Reliance and MTNL too blame the 2,000-odd local cable television service providers in Delhi for the mess and claim all their lines are already underground.

MCD’s action though,has failed to create much alarm among the local cable operators; some of the affected operators have already “repaired” the snapped lines.

While the issue of cleaning up the city before the Games is justified,they claim their reluctance to clear the overhead mess is born out of “much more complex reasons”.

“The MCD had said we must make the city beautiful in time for the Games. We had agreed after the big telecom service providers agreed to share their dark fibre or spare capacity of fibre optics with us. But they are now providing us spare space for faroff areas like Gurgaon and Faridabad instead of areas like Chandni Chowk and Karol Bagh where most of our clientele is,” said a local cable operator.