"It's A Good Idea, We Will See This" : Supreme Court Issues Notice In PIL Seeking Provision Of Common Utility Ducts Along Highways & Other Roadways

Supreme Court has on Wednesday issued notice in plea filed seeking directions to the government to mandatorily provide common utility duct for all public utilities in the construction plan of highways and other roadways 

A three-judge Bench of CJI Bobde, Justice Bopanna and Justice Ramasubramanian has issued a notice returnable in four weeks, in the plea which also seeks implementation of 2016 guidelines issued by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways which contemplate common utility ducts.

The present filed by Advocate Anirudh Sanganeria and drawn by Advocate Srisatya Mohanty has sought directions to ensure that all public utility service providers to mandatorily use the facilities and avoid unnecessary re-digging or trenching of roadways.

The present PIL has been filed to bring to Court's attention, the failure of the relevant authorities to mandatorily provide for common utility duct or utility corridors along the highways for all utilities in the construction plan of large infrastructure projects, despite recommendations for such facilities by various expert bodies and specific provision for such facilities in Government Guidelines dated 22nd November 2016 and National Digital Communications Policy 2018.

The petitioner opines that this is causing unnecessary expenditure on subsequent execution of the same work by public utility services such as telecom companies and other agencies.

"There is a long-standing proposal for adopting a holistic method while executing large infrastructure projects relating to roadways, which shall include provision for IT network and other utility services. It will lead to better utilization of capital expenditure on infrastructure and boost the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Infrastructure of our country. " the plea has stated.

According to petitioner, Joint construction of highways and telecom network is not only feasible but pragmatic because multiple ducts laid along the highway can be used for the multiple purposes. Most importantly, the proposal to lay common utility ducts seeks to replace the prevalent practice of laying the road first and re-digging it to lay ducts later, which adds to the capital cost and causes additional traffic and road safety issues.

According to the petitioner, the proposal of common utility ducts along the roadways have been under consideration by various government bodies since 2002 and various government policies and guidelines also propose the same. However , the said proposal is yet to be approved due to lack of coordination between different Government Ministries/Departments and thus, the said proposal is stuck in bureaucratic bottleneck for the last 20 years approximately.

"The economic ramification of such delay or inaction of the Respondents to implement such state-of-the-art policy is incomprehensible, especially, in view of the fact total budget allocation for roadways has gone up from Rs 83,015 crore last fiscal to Rs 91,832.2 Crore for the Financial Year 2020-21." The plea states

The petitioner has therefore opined that the proposal will benefit all the Stakeholders without exception, especially, when our country is set for rapid expansion of Road Infrastructure as well as IT Infrastructure in the present decade