Open wires on lamp posts a major hazard

CHANDIGARH: Underground electricity wires connected to the street lights without a cover are making life miserable for pedestrians. The wires, that are coiled into metal boxes, while being connected to the street lights are lying exposed without a lid on the box. At some points, the wires are plucked from the ends facing outwards from within the box thus creating making the zone prone to accidents in the surroundings.
"Even though the boxes are placed on the dividers and there is sufficient traffic plying on either sides of the roads, the danger the situation poses cannot be neglected," said Manoj, a shopkeeper.

Speaking to TOI, Manish Khurana, a pedestrian, said, "At some places, they are digging from the sides, I don't know for what. They are also digging the road upto the dividers and connecting both the routes. Apart from that, the dividers are also broken at many places within the city, where new metal boxes, which are to be connected to new signboards are also installed. So amid so much of chaos, if a few wire boxes remain uncovered, what is the problem? People are not blind."

The wires are all green, yellow and red in colour and have been lying uncovered connected to the street light electricity boxes. The road divider of Sectors 39 and 40, along with Sectors 34, 44 and others are full of these wires. "I have often observed the maintenance of civic amenities is much more thorough in the Northern Sectors of the city as compared to the Southern Sectors, which are plagued with a lot of other issues. I think the administration should be a lot more uniform in keeping up with the civic issues of the whole city," said Vaibhav Narang, a passerby.

Apart from the electrical wire boxes, at some places, the concrete base of street lights, which is circular in shape is also broken without a metal box. Broken pieces of concrete are scattered all around. causing danger.

An MC official told TOI, "We have been introducing certain changes in the city and are trying to attend to issues pertaining to different sectors. We will look into this matter too and get it solved pretty soon."