Limited road-cutting permission stalls underground power cabling

The BBMP’s stringency in giving permissions for road-cutting has hit the pace of Bescom’s work to convert overhead cables into underground lines.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has limited the number of permissions granted for road-cutting after the poor quality of roads came under the high court’s scrutiny and criticism from the public.

Though the original deadline to complete the first two phases of laying the underground power cables was October 2021, officials said they may need one more month to complete the pending work.

“It takes days to get permission for road-cutting from the BBMP,” said a Bescom engineer working on the project. “We also must work with the BWSSB and gas companies to ensure we don’t damage their utilities.”