As many as 20 telecom service providers, including BSNL, have laid illegal cables on roads in the city.
The Chennai Corporation on Friday listed the names of the companies and announced that the unauthorised cables would be removed.
The Corporation recently decided to regulate cables on the roads to facilitate pedestrian movement and for commissioning concrete-topped roads on stretches.
The civic body requested the service providers to get the cables tagged after registration of the facilities and set a deadline of October 21 for getting licence for cables.
Only one company has obtained licence for cables so far. Twenty companies, including BSNL, Tata Communications, Power Grid Corporation, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices Limited, Aircel Cellular Limited, Reliance Broadband Limited and Vodafone (South) Limited, have commissioned cables without obtaining licence from the Corporation.
“We have just 40 km of overhead cables in Chennai to facilitate exchange to exchange connectivity or for commercial broadband for some customers.
We will get the tags from Chennai Corporation soon. But BSNL is not shifting the underground cables.
The cables will be safe after white topping of roads. The shifting charges are high and we will lay new cables if they are damaged,” said an official of BSNL.
Should the Corporation launch drastic measures, mobile and Internet users could get caught in the crossfire between the civic agency and service providers as communication services in the city, ranging from voice calls to broadband access, may go haywire.
