HYDERABAD: Mayor Mohd Majid Hussain on Wednesday announced the corporation’s plans to go in for a clutter free urban sky space by burying all overhead telephone and internet cables into one common underground duct. The move is part of the city beautification scheme for the Conference of Parties (CoP-11) to be held in the city this October.
“125 km of roads earmarked for CoP development related works and a few other important stretches will be cleaned up in the first phase. We hope to complete the entire cable relaying works before the commencement of the event in October this year,” he said.
Outlining the plan for the project, MT Krishna Babu, Commissioner, GHMC, made it clear that the entire city would not be subjected to the underground laying works initially, and only 15 km along four stretches: Basheerbagh- Assembly- SR Nagar, NFCL Junction- Masab Tank- Mehdipatnam via Banjara Hills Road No.1, Indira Park- RTC Cross Roads- Ramnagar and Taj Krishna- KCP Junction-Khairatabad route would be earmarked for the pilot stage.
“Once we finish the proposed works, no road cutting or cable laying works will be allowed for a period of 10 years. Anyone who indulges in the same will be liable for criminal prosecution,” he said.
He further added, “presently, 19 ducts will be laid, of which seven will be reserved for MSO (television cable), ISP (internet cable) and IP (internet on lease to third party) cables, eight will be reserved for carrying telephone cables of different operators and four will be laid for the sake of future investors. The ducts will be laid in a stacked formation and the entire project will be entrusted to a single agency to avoid any hassles.”
Further, maintaining that beautification of the city was the corporation’s prerogative, the Mayor said that telecom and cable companies would be charged a nominal user maintenance fee per kilometre to help ease the financial burden of the project.
“The restoration/ resurfacing of the road will be taken up on a junction to junction basis and only one side of the road will be used for the project. The other side of the road will be left for the APCPDCL to lay the underground electric cables. GHMC plans to implement the project based on the underground duct model already implemented in Chennai”, he explained.
This move of laying electronic and electrical cables on different sides of the road is expected to avoid any sort of interference between telephone and highly charged electric cables.