Harish Mukherjee Road to be free of cable mess today

Kolkata: On Tuesday, Harish Mukherjee Road will become the city’s first road to be free of the cable mess after cable operators, telecom firms and internet service providers sever the overhead cable connections and remove them. Each service provider has already laid fresh cables in underground ducts on either pavement of the road. These cables went live on Monday evening.Only two pairs of cables of Kolkata Police and CESC that remain will also be shifted to the underground duct in a fortnight.
The clean-up of the skyline along the 2.2 km stretch in south Kolkata also paves the way for similar initiatives in other key stretches, including Park Street and Chowringhee. Not only will these neighbourhoods be rid of the ugly sight of mesh of cables hanging from KMC poles, they will also ensure that streetlights do not buckle because of cables when trees down the road get uprooted during storms.
“The shift to underground duct at Harish Mukherjee Road is a milestone when this stretch of Kolkata regains its pristine skyline. If KMC lays ducts in other parts of Kolkata, we will cooperate and shift the cables underground there as well,” said All Bengal Cable & Broadband Operators’ United Forum joint convener Tapash Das.
The clean-up comes at a cost — KMC has invested more than Rs 50 lakh in two flexi ducts on either pavement between Rabindra Sadan and Kalighat fire station. Operators expect KMC to levy a charge in future, a portion of which will subsequently be passed on to consumers. But they admit it will also benefit service providers by reducing maintenance costs that shoot up during monsoon when cables snap.
The work on Tuesday will involve removal of nearly 70 km of overhead cables by service providers, including SitiCable, Hathway, Meghbela, Alliance Broadband, Jio Fibre, TataSky, Airtel and Vodafone.
Work on the project had begun in December 2020.