Digging casualty: Lalbaug, Parel phone lines go dead……..Chittaranjan Tembhekar & Sharad Vyas
MUMBAI: Infrastructure works across the city have played havoc with underground public utility services. On Monday, thousands of Lalbaug and Parel residents complained about disconnection of their telephone landline since eight days, apparently because of damage to the network due to flyover and monorail construction works. MTNL has assured to repair the damages in a couple of days.
An average of 7,000 telephone lines get disconnected every day in Mumbai region, of which approximately 4,000 get damaged due to the ongoing infrastructure work alone, mainly construction of flyovers, skywalks, tunneling works, metro rail, monorail and other underground construction activities taken up by civic agencies. A mammoth repairing job, the MTNL’s force of technicians must restore 1.2 lakh connections every month, sometimes more.
Mumbaikars blame civic agencies the BMC or the MMRDA for the mess because they lack proper coordination with service providers in creating comprehensive underground utility mapping which is needed to avoid such frequent damages. “We get an average of three to four major damages every month due to digging works. But since these days, we have developed better coordination with the infrastructure agencies, we take a maximum of two days to restore connectivity,” said MTNL spokesperson GVRS Kumar.
While damage to a major cable disconnects 800 to 1,000 connections, a small cable takes away the connectivity of around 25-50 customers. MTNL provides service to consumers from Colaba to Mira Road, Bhayander, Thane and Navi Mumbai. Kumar said at all the 150 MTNL exchanges in Mumbai region, the administration had set up a special squad to take up contingency works.
MMRDA spokesman Dilip Kawathkar said to avoid complications and public outcry, MMRDA has developed a practice of intimating service providers about the construction plan and getting the utilities shifted only through them since they have the expertise in the mapping of underground utilities.
BMC was initially interested in mapping. But two years since it first thought of it, the project hasn’t taken off due to financial constraints. The tender for mapping of utilities was called off soon after three firms came forward for the bidding process. The overall cost of project was estimated at Rs 13 crore, but it eventually shot up to Rs 28 crore. “Utility mapping was to be carried out along with mapping of properties and other civic amenities. But now, due to the crunch, we will not carry out mapping of utilites until the situation improves,” said a senior civic official.