Naked, hanging wires pose threat to residents
Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, July 26
With the monsoon season at its peak, the uncovered live electric wires hanging from electricity poles, in streets and roads, particularly in congested localities of the town, are posing a serious threat to residents. But the authorities concerned seem to be in deep slumber and are waiting for a tragedy to strike.
A visit to various localities here revealed that lids of the junction boxes of a majority of streetlights were missing. It is learnt that they have never been repaired since their installation. At many places, the lids were open, exposing the live wires and posing a danger.
Uncovered wires hanging loose can be spotted at several areas in the city. At many places, even wire joints are lying uncovered and can cause major incident during the rainy season. Residents feel that these are an open invitation to untoward incidents.
Sukhraj Singh, a resident, pointed out that most dangling uncovered power wires are an accident waiting to happen. The authorities concerned are fully aware of the danger but unfortunately have turned a blind eye to the problem. He also stated that they have been staying here for years, but no one has ever bothered to cover or remove these wires. They demanded that the authorities should take effective measures and rectify the problem to save the people from any untoward incident.
It’s worth mentioning that many have lost their lives in the past in the city due to this non-serious attitude of the officials on the issue as despite such incidents, nothing has been done by the authorities concerned in this regard.
In 2013, an 18-year-old kabaddi player, Talwinder Singh, died of electrocution while trying to cross the road near Dashmesh Senior Secondary School and was electrocuted from a pole.
Even a resident of Ganesh Nagar also died last year after coming in contact with the electric wires while standing on the rooftop of his house.
Jaspal Sharma, a city resident, said, “People are prone to electrocution in view of the low-lying electric wires. Despite repeated requests, nothing has been done by the Powercom authorities in this regard.
Another resident, Atul Garg, said at most of the places, transformers are uncovered and so are their wires. Many times, sparks coming out of them have fallen on passersby.”
Senior Powercom officials put the blame on the the Bathinda Municipal Corporation stating that the BMC looks after the streetlights, so they are responsible for this.
MCB Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said he will have it checked and instruct the officials to check all the lights and wiring and wherever they find hanging and uncovered wires, they should correct as safety of the public is utmost important.
- It’s worth mentioning that many have lost their lives in the past in the city due to the non-serious attitude of the officials as despite such incidents, nothing has been done by the authorities concerned in this regard.
- In 2013, an 18-year-old kabaddi player, Talwinder Singh, died of electrocution while trying to cross the road near Dashmesh Senior Secondary School. He got entangled in the wires dangling from a pole.
- Even a resident of Ganesh Nagar died last year after coming in contact with the electric wires while standing on the roof of his house.
