Considering the woes faced by citizens owing to excavation of roads, the BMC has now decided that all the utility agencies will have to share their annual plan of trenching with assistant civic commissioners of the ward concerned. The blueprint of the proposed digging exercises has to be submitted in June and July every year and the BMC will then grant permissions, accordingly, after which the actual groundwork can begin from October.
Open for public suggestions
The clause is part of the draft related to the forthcoming trenching work policy. The proposed guidelines are open for public suggestions and objections, said a BMC notice.
There was a growing demand to tweak the 2014 trenching policy, while the civic body was also mulling to organise the excavation of roads as many of them have been built recently at a cost of several crore rupees.
300mt stretch at a time
As per the draft, the utility agencies like power companies, telecoms, internet providers, etc would have to pay 5% extra charge if they fail to share their trenching plan in the aforementioned period. Also, a road can't be completely dug up, inconveniencing pedestrians. The guidelines propose that a 300mt stretch of a road can be excavated at a time; only after refilling it and clearing debris from the site, further path can be dug up.
It further underscored that the maximum width of a trench will be 0.6mt and the maximum depth will be 1mt. Similarly, for gas pipelines or power cables, depth up to 1.5mt, with an average width of 0.75mt will be allowed.
No permission shall be granted to dig asphalt road till it completes the first year of the defect liability period. In case of urgency, permissions need to be taken from additional municipal commissioner (Project) and assistant commissioner of the ward concerned.
Similarly, to avoid damage to newly-built cement concrete (CC) roads, the BMC said that it will keep the utility agencies in the loop before undertaking projects to construct CC roads. The move will allow them to shift the underground cables elsewhere before the project starts hence eliminating the chances of damage to new roads. In exceptional cases, BMC chief's nod will be needed to dig CC roads.
