PANAJI
Governments and their machinery are never wrong. Even if they are, they have their way. It somewhat explains the ongoing tussle of sorts playing out between the Goa government, through its Electricity Department, and the many cable TV, internet and other service providers over the usage of electricity poles to mount their cables.
Tuesday's internet outage in the capital city and many regions across the State after the Electricity Department's Executive Engineer Kashinath Shetye went about cutting cables following a deadlock in a dispute currently being adjudicated in two separate writ petitions by the Bombay High Court at Goa.
The High Court matters and the unsavoury turn of events on Tuesday aside, both the government and the operators are now in search of a practical way forward, especially with the backlash from the public who had to face the brunt of it all -- internet outage -- when it is they (consumers) who are the only ones most bonafide in this conundrum, paying up the fees for the services they use.
First, the government retreated. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, obviously hit by an avalanche of complaints following the internet outage, issued instructions to the Electricity Department to immediately stop the cable cutting drive. Simultaneously, he asked the Chief Secretary Dr V Candavelou to hold a meeting with all government departments linked or having jurisdiction over the matter and come up with a solution.
Candavelou's meet with top babus
Chief Secretary Candavelou called and chaired a meeting of officers drawn from several government departments, where the agenda was to find a way out of how to put in order the mess of wires and cables hanging from poles and trees across the State but with a caveat: Without affecting internet connectivity.
This happened on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Tuesday's disruption of internet connectivity, by which time the service providers were permitted to continue using electricity poles to hang their cables from and restore connectivity.
After nearly an hour of deliberations, Candavelou and the related department heads discussed procedures followed in other States to issue similar permissions. It concluded with Candavelou issuing directions to regularise the bunch of cables. He also directed the superintending engineers appointed by the Electricity Department as nodal officers for the North and South Goa districts to begin processing all the pending and new applications from the service providers.
Temporary solution
A day after the Candavelou chaired meeting, the Electricity Department came out with an official mandate for the service providers -- telecom, internet and cable TV -- by which they are henceforth required to formally apply online for permissions to utilise its infrastructure including poles to mount their cables.
The online applications have to be made on the Central government's 'Gatishakti Sanchar' portal and the Electricity Department will process all these applications and grant approvals based on merit and payment of the prescribed fees.
Meanwhile, on the portal manned by the Information Technology Department, the conditions for the use of electricity infrastructure are explicitly specified, including the safety measures, the need to maintain aesthetics and no hindrance to the functioning of the Electricity Department's line staff.
Under the mandate, the service providers are also required to immediately remove all wires and cables hanging overhead in areas where the department has made underground ducts available. Here, the service providers are required to route their cables through the underground ducts.
Tussle began in early January
The tussle between the Electricity Department and the service providers flared up in early January when the leadership in the department decided to address the issue of alleged unauthorised use of its infrastructure to mount fibre optic and other cables, a problem it had itself to blame for letting the service providers nearly four years of a virtual free for all.
On January 11, a Saturday, a team of the electricity department led by Executive Engineer Kashinath Shetye went about taking down all the overhead cables in the Patto area of the capital city, disrupting services there.
Shetye at that time had said the action was being taken because service providers were hanging cables on electricity poles with impunity with total disregard for the law and safety. He had said that underground ducts have been provided and the service providers should follow procedure and use them instead of illegally hanging their wires overhead on the department's poles.
He had also claimed that repeated notices had been issued to the service providers to remove their cables and use the ducts specifically provided for the purpose because these cables prove a safety hazard to linesmen working on faults and repairs of electricity installations.
The action had targeted the business district at the EDC Patto Plazza and the disruption in internet connectivity it caused, although isolated, had sent the service providers scurrying to the Vidyut Bhavan in a bid to resolve the issue.
After nearly a fortnight of discussions and negotiations, the service providers submitted 200 applications to the designated authority at the IT department. These applications were for the individual registration of the service providers and to also regularise the cables already mounted on Electricity Department poles across the State. Collectively, the length of the cables already hanging on poles and in use across the State amounted to a whopping 3,000 kilometres.
In the meanwhile, sensing trouble, the service providers through their association knocked on the doors of the Bombay High Court at Goa with a writ petition against the drastic action resorted to by the Electricity Department of cutting cables. With the High Court refraining from granting any relief during the last hearing in the matter on Monday, the Electricity Department went about cutting the overhead cables across the capital city which resulted in Tuesday's cyber mayhem.
Post script
The situation where the ISPs have enjoyed a parasitic relationship with the Electricity Department, using power transmission infrastructure to mount their own cables on while refusing to seek any permission or pay any rent has persisted for years -- from the days of the cable TV operators, who would string cables across the electricity poles and get away with it.
No one complained because it served many homes. Now, in the case of the internet, with each connection requiring individual cables, it is a visual mess as well as a safety hazard.
Smashed between Kashinath Shetye, the belligerent engineer of the electricity department and the irresponsible ISPs is the end user -- the consumer -- who is least bothered to know which pole is straining under the weight of a web of cables, as long as they get internet connectivity and are able to do their work or stream Netflix, seamlessly.
Officers like Shetye provide a timely wake-up call to all stakeholders to take stock of the ugly mess that the city streets have become. That said, however, his 'bull in the China shop' approach does no one any good and while it seemed that nothing would get the ISPs to change their ways, the indiscriminate clipping hasn't either.
The ball now rests in the Bombay High Court, where hopefully matters will be resolved and sorted out. Apart from eventually getting the ISPs to pay up or take permission, at least in the capital city where underground ducts are available courtesy of the multi-crore 'smart city' project which coincidentally the High Court is also seized of, all cables should go invisible, pronto.
