Legislative gaps, neglect leave cables hanging.

Bengaluru

The tag of being the Silicon Valley of India has brought with it an enormous and tangled web of various cables that run under citizens’ feet as well as above their heads. It is hard not to compare the wires hanging above us to the Sword of Damocles, reminding us that they could snap at any time and kill or injure us. With the recent rains, the city saw two people electrocuted due to hanging wires. While the statistics for 2026 and 2025 are not available, the NCRB report stated that Bengaluru topped the nation in deaths due to civic negligence, with 17.

Citizens have of ten raised complaints over the wires and News Trail has also observed snapped wires hanging down over roads, foot paths or lying around in public spaces. The responsibility of clearing these wires lands with the Greater Bengaluru Authority and their five corporations. GBA’s Chief Engineer (Electrical), Anand said, “Many of these wires are OFC cables and they don’t have permission to cut them. Many companies are there and they put these wires and when they get cut, they don’t remove them. So that is causing a lot of issues.

” For citizen activist Sandeep Anirudhan, the problem goes much deeper than the clearing of wires. “What needs to be kept in mind is legislation will be effective only if the state factors in the demand for certain things, otherwise what happens is that there will be a grey market. For example, in Mumbai there was a legislation during World War II which kept the rents down, it was not repealed after the war, as a result what happened is all the expensive parts of Mumbai had very low rents and sale of property was impossible, so it created a grey market called Dawood Ibrahim,” he said.

Similarly, in Karnataka, the existing legislation regulating the industry doesn’t factor in the cable TV and telecom industry. “What they are doing is completely illegal, it's all an informal economy, these are the Dawood Ibrahims of telecom. None of the registered companies have cables flying around. The state has not responded to this new development in a holistic manner,” he said. Instead of proactively planning the lay out of such cables, the people responsible for taking care of the issue only clear the wires when pressure builds up due to accidents.

Indeed, with the situation left as it is, the general public, especially pedestrians are the most affected with accidents involving wires. Shruthi M, who does not possess a vehicle said that she is quite scared of using the footpaths in the rain. “They hang low over footpaths, spill onto pavements, and force pedestrians to change course or be extra cautious. Now with the monsoon coming I am honestly scared. We read news reports on the issues faced by people - even leading to death,'' she added.