The Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Saturday asked all outdoor advertisement agencies to check the stability of structures on which advertisements are displayed in the next few days, an official said.
The civic body also asked cable operators to quickly identify defunct cables and remove them in a bid to reduce load on street lights and trees, to which the wires are tied in many places.
The Telegraph reported on Saturday about cables hanging dangerously across the city, old and wrongly pruned trees precariously standing on roads and giant, rusty billboard frames standing menacingly atop buildings.
When Cyclone Amphan struck in May 2020, thousands of trees and street lightswere uprooted. Civic officials said the weight of the thick bunches of cables tied to street lights and trees contributed to this.
A tour of the city revealed that very little had changed in the three years since Cyclone Amphan.
“We issued a directive to 55 outdoor advertisement agencies that have purchased rights to display advertisements on structures hanging from households. All of them were told to check the stability of these structures in the next few days,” said an official of the KMC.
A cyclonic circulation, the precursor to Cyclone Mocha, took shape over the southeast Bay of Bengal on Saturday.
The path and landfall destination of the cyclone should be clear in a couple of days, the India Meteorological Department has said.
“The structures should be checked in the next few days. We do not know whether Kolkata will come in Cyclone Mocha’s way but we should ensure there are no accidents,” said the official.
The frames atop private buildings carry more threat of disaster because they can injure many people if they fall, said the official. The authorities have said that since they are on private properties, there is lesser supervision of these structures.
The KMC will check about 500 street hoardings — the ones that stand on footpaths.
The official said a check of these hoardings was conducted about three months ago and 18 of them were found to be in dilapidated condition. “They were replaced,” said the official.
The civic body’s lighting department on Saturday asked cable operators to remove defunct cables from as many roads as possible in the next few days. This would reduce load on street lights and trees.
Across Kolkata, bunches of thick cables hang overhead. The rolls of cables tied to the street lights would weigh a few kilograms and their weight during very strong winds could topple the poles.
“We have been telling the cable operators for several months to remove the defunct wires. This will at least reduce some load and make the streets look better. They have removed the cables only on some roads. The authorities, too, never took any strict action despite threats,” said a KMC official.