mid-day impact: Now, no road in Mumbai will be dug up twice

The civic bodyrsquos got an earful for allowing haphazard digging of roads which resulted in more potholes and hence itrsquos in damage control mode In a recent meeting with all the heads of civic departments municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta has made it stricter for utility agencies to secure permission for trenching and also issued directives regarding methods used to fill up the pitsThis stretch at Matunga was left in a mess soon after it was dug up for laying cablesThe civic chief said officials who were a part of the meeting has taken a serious note of damage to newly constructed roads due to trenching and hence asked assistant municipal commissioners of all wards to coordinate with utility agenciesA senior official said ldquoThe agencies will be asked to put up boards on which they have to mention their name and dates of starting and finishing the work This will help to create public pressure on them as well as civic officials to stick to the given deadlinerdquoRead Story 4G race fallout 685 km of roads dug up in 2 years in MumbaiBefore giving a particular utility firm permission to trench the local ward official will have to check with all the other agencies whether they have any plan in the future to do similar work on the same stretch The purpose is to avoid repeated digging in the same place to control damage to the road The ward official has also been asked to ensure reinstatement of trenching as per the standard normsmidday had reported Sept 19 about the ad hoc permission granted to utility agencies which had led to haphazard trenching of 685 km of city roadsNew guidelinesThe new guidelines make barricading the area being dug compulsory and also putting up a board stating which company is carrying out the work and when will it be completedOfficials said these fresh rules have been applied to all the trenching permissions given since October 1Speaking to midday Mehta said ldquoStrict instructions have been given to all ward officials to ensure they get a plan from all utility agencies so that there is minimal digging of roads We want to avoid digging of the same stretch of road twice for such work If any agency comes to do trenching on a particular stretch where work has already been done then we are going to charge it a higher feerdquoPoor implementationCivic activist Nikhil Desai said ldquoHow many times such directives are given by every new commissioner The problem lies in implementation Also MTNL and BEST are lossmaking units so once their work is done they dont bother with proper repairs as it costs them While private utility companies are only bothered about finishing their projects on time so they dont bother with reinstatement of roadsrdquo