|
Bescom is responsible for power distribution in the six districts
of Karnataka. The company justified its actions saying it didn't
want such a tragedy repeated.
As per media repots, 7 year old Anish, who was to leave for the
US on Friday (16 July), was electrocuted just yards from his house
when he came in contact with a live wire. He’d gone to buy a packet
of biscuits from a shop across the road.
The cable wire was energized on the 8th Cross, off 10th Main, in
Indiranagar II Stage. As per initial reports, Bescom said that technical
investigations were hampered as evidences at the accident spot were
tampered with. They claim that by the time they reached the spot,
the police had dismantled and removed the television cable along
with other loose wires. The police deny this saying that the wires
were removed by Bescom personnel.
As the fault lies with the present system of pole hiring for cables
not stressing on the identification of wires, no one is willing
to take responsibility for the death. Bescom may have no evidence
to support its charges against cable operators because of this.
Experts say that Bescom did not carry out any inspection after granting
a license to instal/lay cables. And there hasn't been any check
also from the company's part to see if cable wires are restricted
to the areas for which the license has been granted, they allege.
"Without even proving that the wire through which the accident
occurred was a cable TV one, they just went on cutting our property.
The cable could have been an Internet or even telecom cable,"
said Karnataka State Cable TV Operators Association spokesperson
Sudhish Kumar.
Approximately 1,200 cable operators have threatened to black out
all channels unless a list of demands is met, the main one being
that Bescom compensate operators for the cables they have cut. Other
demands include a stay on the ongoing cable-cutting and the regularisation
of the cables, which are already laid/installed.
Reports quote General Manager (Technical), Bescom general manager
(technical) AN Ramanujam as saying, "We don't know what is
legal and what is not. Cable operators must come and inform us which
cable is authorized. What compensation are they talking about? They
have used our poles illegally. If we yield to their demands, Bangalore
will have many more Anishs dying."
Anish's family refused to accept the compensation of Rs 100,000
offered by Bescom saying, "Whatever happened to our son should
not be repeated with any other children."
|