Road digging in Bhubaneswar without permission to invite legal action: BMC

Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) today warned that FIRs will be lodged against organisations or people involved in road digging without prior permission in the city area.

The decision was taken in an inter-departmental meeting held at the BMC headquarters on Wednesday in the wake of complaints about the failure to restore road patches across the city.

In this high-level meeting presided over by Commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange, Additional Commissioner Suryavanshi Mayur Vikas, Deputy Commissioner Revenue Priyabrat Padhi, Senior Officials of Watco, Idco and Works, BSNL, OPTCL, GAIL India Limited, Power Grid, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Tata Communications Ltd., Vodafone-Idea etc. were present.

Any organization or person shall not lay cables, bury poles, gas pipelines, sewerage or dig roads for construction work. Before doing this, permission must be obtained from the BMC, otherwise, the BMC will report the violation to the police station, the civic body said.

It is to be noted that many complaints have been received by the authorities in this regard to the complaint cell of BMC. Even in the corporation meeting of BMC, the corporators have drawn attention to such problems.

People face many difficulties due to the sorrowful state of the roads, frequent accidents are also taking place and the beauty of the city is also getting degraded due to the unauthorised digging of roads at various places.

In the interest of the public, any department, corporation, or institution has to follow the prevailing rules. So before digging the road, they have to get the permission of BMC after showing proper reasons. , if justified, permission will be granted, authorities said.

The BMC Commissioner said that if there is any violation, then an FIR will be lodged against the concerned organisation or person. Also, construction materials including, sand, soil, gravel, etc and debris cannot be piled on the roadside, he said.

The BMC Commissioner further directed the officials to ensure strict adherence to the rules.