PMC digging work on Law College Road
Because the civic administration still lacks a single, consolidated digital map of the vast network of utilities buried beneath its streets, this is. “Multiple road mishaps occur due to road digging. Many businesses and firms suffer due to damage to internet cables while digging in the city, which hosts a huge presence of the IT sector.
The corporation has confirmed to TOI that it possesses no unified digital master plan tracking the exact routes of drinking water pipelines, drainage lines, electrical grids, gas ducts, and fibre-optic cables. Timeline to PMC’s duct policy You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Pune | Silver Rate in Pune | Bank Holidays in Pune | Public Holidays in Pune | Petrol Price in Pune | Diesel Price in Pune | CNG Price in Pune | LPG Price in Pune Stay updated with the latest Pune news.
The implementation of the ‘Pune Duct Policy’ is currently under the civic administration’s consideration again, officials said. For instance, PMC’s road department head Rajesh Bankar said, “We have established a ‘Single Window Utility Portal’ for the road department, modelled along the lines of Central govt’s ‘GatiShakti’ initiative. It can be avoided with proper planning,” said Gauri Kulkarni, a resident of Kothrud. Commenting on the issue to TOI , urban planner Ramchandra Gohad, said, “Each department and agency that digs up a road has the details and maps.
Pune: Road excavation across the city — an almost constant activity — is being approached by PMC relying almost entirely on guesswork. Now, aiming to break the endless cycle of uncoordinated road excavation, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is once again considering the formulation of a mandatory ‘Pune Duct Policy’. Under this framework, dedicated utility corridors would be made compulsory along all new major arterial roads. In its official reply to the general body meeting in Sept, PMC stated that making ‘utility ducts’ mandatory on major roads will provide independent spaces for laying cables. The same concept had been discussed almost a decade ago during Smart City Mission implementation, but failed to take off. The response in the general body was to a query by Kondhwa corporator Archana Jagtap, who asked, “What is the civic administration’s policy on carrying out 3D underground mapping before road excavations using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology, which discovers what lies underground without digging up roads? PMC replied that even though such mapping is necessary, no policy has been determined by the administration yet. As per civic officials, individual departments are required to make the consolidated digital maps of underground utilities they have laid available to the corporation, although a centralised composite map is lacking. Officials also claimed that the civic administration takes measures at least at the intra-department level to tackle repeated road cutting caused by a lack of coordination between various municipal departments and private utility companies. Ganesh Sonune, head of PMC’s disaster management department, admitted, “Consolidated mapping will certainly help in reducing mishaps and damages to underground utilities, and will also be helpful for public safety. Citizens also want PMC to harness new-age technology to make sure that mishaps do not occur during road digging. Not only accidents, but problems like damages to internet cables and water supply lines also happen during digging. It leads to wastage of water and disruption of internet services. The civic administration just needs better coordination to get this data. The use of technology can easily create consolidated maps that can then be made available to all agencies. A yearly timetable should also be made and shared with private agencies involved in digging, and strictly followed. Unplanned digging is leading not only to damage to public properties but also to private individuals. The planning of road digging should detailed and precise. Download the TOI App.
