E-Paper
Lucknow municipal corporation to act on LESA’s suggestion for coordinated road digging
Chief engineer LESA Vipin Jain said on many occasions they had to face people’s wrath due to, what he described as, the fault of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) or others involved in road cutting for various reasons.
After frequent power cuts caused by damage to underground power cables during sewer cleaning and road-cutting, the Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) and municipal corporation plan to undertake road digging works after proper coordination.
“Yes, we are ready to coordinate on this,” the officials said.
Chief engineer LESA Vipin Jain said on many occasions they had to face people’s wrath due to, what he described as, the fault of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) or others involved in road cutting for various reasons.
“On Monday while cleaning sewer, the LMC men damaged our underground power cables, affecting power supply in more than 30,000 houses of the area. Our people took almost an hour to know the place where the cable was damaged. Had LMC coordinated with LESA, this power cut would have been avoided. In many narrow lanes of old city areas, LESA cables run along the LMC drains and sewers. Since cables and drains will coexist, we will have to develop better coordination to guard against power cuts, especially in summers,” he said.
“LMC and telecom companies who keep digging roads must inform us in advance so that our engineers could be present at the site to guide them on how to avoid power cables. We had written to telecom companies and departments like PWD, LDA, housing board, about this. Even if a cable is damaged, the presence of our people at the site will ensure that the fault is rectified promptly,” he said.
“Recently, the cable supplying power to the airport was damaged as some work was carried out by airport administration and it took hours for LESA engineers to detect the fault and normalise power supply. Similarly, on May 14 and May 12 too, a telecom company, damaged 150-meter-long underground cable in Jankipuram and affected power supply to 11 kV Sultanpur feeder and II KV Shaurya Vihar feeder. Power supply remained disrupted for eight hours and LESA had to take the blame,” the LESA official said.
On being approached, LMC authorities said they were willing to coordinate with LESA on this.
“We are ready to coordinate with LESA or any other department before digging up roads. LESA engineers can share the drawings of the cables laid down by them in various city areas. They can also consider getting a special duct for the cables,” said additional municipal commissioner, LMC, Pankaj Singh.
“LMC too suffers when LESA digs up road to repair their cables. After they dig up, we have to reconstruct roads at those places. There should be a system at the ward level and at substation level where the officials of LMC and LESA can coordinate to minimise public inconvenience. Both the departments are directly accountable to people so better coordination will always be fruitful,” Singh said.
