Telecom firm digs up Rs 30-cr Dharamsala road to lay ducts that already existed

A road constructed over the past five years under the Dharamsala Smart City project, at a cost of Rs 30 crore, has been dug up — either mistakenly or due to alleged negligence on the part of the local administration.

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MC commissioner to get FIR lodged

• The 3 km stretch was constructed under the Smart City project
• Comes under MC, but road digging permission granted by PWD
• The MC said an FIR would be lodged against the telecom firm

Despite the road already having concrete ducts for telecom and electricity wires, a private telecom company has dug trenches along it to lay additional ducts. The PWD granted permission for the digging, though the ducts had been pre-installed. Interestingly, the local Municipal Corporation, which owns the ducts and the road, claimed it had no knowledge of trenches having been dug up on the road. The trenches have not only damaged the road, but also pose a threat to the pre-existing ducts.

The Commissioner of the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation, Zaffar Iqbal, said the MC would get an FIR registered against the telecom company for damaging the road.

“We have constructed ducts along the road. The telecom company should have used these for laying wires. The PWD had no authority to allow the firm to dig trenches along the road,” he said.

Lack of coordination between different government departments has affected several development works in the city. Telecom companies have also reportedly damaged recently constructed footpaths and other infrastructure while laying their wires in other parts of the city.

Sarvesh Sharma, a resident of Dharamsala, said concrete pavements along roads had been dug up and damaged by telecom companies in the recent past.

He said residents of the Civil Lines area in the city had been suffering as work on construction ducts along the road was underway. Now just when the work was nearing completion, telecom companies had once again dug up the road.

The way public money was being wasted under the Smart City project in Dharamsala was unfortunate, he said.

The road constructed under the Smart City project extends from the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education head office to the Dharamsala bus stand. An amount of over Rs 30 crore has been spent on this 3-km stretch.