The Provincial Electricity Authority has launched a nationwide effort to tidy up messy and dangerous jumbles of power and utility lines.
Chonburi Deputy Gov. Chanchai Iamcharoen and PEA officials were on hand as the utility launched its effort in Chonburi Dec. 1. The authority plans to reorganize electricity, telephone, internet and cable-television lines in 74 provinces.
In addition to being unsightly, the spaghetti-like tangles of wires hanging from poles leads to fires and power outages when vehicles snag the drooping line. The jumbles grow as technicians string new lines without removing disused ones.
Thailand was embarrassed on the world stage last year when Microsoft founder Bill Gates posted to Twitter a picture of a horrific tangle of lines in Bangkok.
PEA officials cautioned that it has tried many times to clean up the country’s power poles, but that success depends upon the cooperation of telephone, cable TV and internet companies that share the poles.
