Title - Officials seek underground services details for constructing metro

LUCKNOW: Before initiating construction of metro project, the metro cell officials have asked for detailed report on various underground services like water supply pipeline, sewer lines, electric cable wires which may be at the risk of getting damaged once metro track construction begins.All local agencies like Lucknow Municipal Corporation, Jal Sansthan, Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) have been put on the task to furnish details about electricity cables, sewerage and water supply lines, storm water drainage system underneath and telecommunication lines and cables.LDA officials said that since these pipelines have been put after a lot of effort and are integral to the lives of common people, special care needs to be taken that these services' infrastructure don't get harmed in the process of laying tracks for metro rail. These need to be kept operational during the construction phase as it is a long, approximately 7-8 years project. The details are being sought to carry out construction without disturbing the underground amenities.

However local agencies did not rule out frequent occurrences of damaged pipelines and sewer lines in the process of metro construction in the wake of past track record. They said they are prepared for some sort of repair work every now and then.

Admitting that protecting the underlying services from getting disturbed was a major task before LMC, its senior official said that they have instructed Jal Sansthan to prepare map reports of all kinds of sewer and pipe lines on the metro route. Also, maps of nullahs, drainage and storm water drains would also be reviewed. The major challenge would be to maintain consistent water supply which might come in teh way of metro's construction.

On the other hand, LESA said that the underground cables supplying to substations are very important for power supply, so much precaution needs to be taken that they are not damaged. However, the department said that it would cooperate with the authority for any kind of development work and has already asked for providing drawings of these cable network.