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Phone, electricity companies to pay more for digging up your roads

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Fed up with constantly cratered and trenched roads? There's some solace at hand.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has decided to charge utility companies more money henceforth for digging up roads, based on how old the road or footpath is.

Currently, utility companies must pay between Rs3,500 to Rs8,500 per running metre (a metre multiplied by the width of the footpath or road) to BMC for digging up footpaths made using paver blocks and for asphalt and cement concrete roads. This is known as the base restoration rate.

As per BMC's new policy, digging up of roads or footpaths which have been made in the last one year will cost the utility contractor four times the base restoration rate. For two-year-old roads and footpaths, the contractor will be charged three times the road restoration rate. Digging on roads and footpaths made three years ago will cost the contractors double the base restoration charges and for older roads than three years, the contractor will have to pay the base restoration charges to the BMC.

The plan would be effective from February 1, said additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas, who is in charge of the BMC's roads department.

"Different utility companies dig up roads for different purposes, for laying water pipelines or phone and internet cables, among others. As a result, the quality of roads and footpaths suffer. The move is likely to deter utility companies from digging up roads, especially those which are newly-made, as now they will have to pay up to four times the base restoration charges for that," Srinivas said.

According to him, for roads and footpaths older than four years, companies will have to pay the base rate, since the condition of roads tends to deteriorate by then.

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