New Delhi: The Delhi government plans to build underground corridors to accommodate pipelines and cables to reduce repeated road digging and traffic disruptions, officials said on Thursday.
They added that the initiative was approved at a recent Cabinet meeting, with the pilot project proposed at two stretches in Chandni Chowk. The ducts will initially be developed along 310m of Esplanade Road and 560m of Mor Sarai Road. They added that the system will subsequently be expanded to other parts of the city.
Officials said these corridors, called multi-utility ducts (MUDs), will accommodate electricity cables, water and gas pipelines, fire-hydrant networks and other essential utilities at technically suitable locations. The pilot project, officials said, will help assess the technical and operational feasibility of housing multiple utility networks within common underground corridors. In a statement issued on Thursday, chief minister Rekha Gupta said the project aimed at creating safer and more organised infrastructure while keeping Delhi’s future requirements in mind.
Officials from discoms, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), Public Works Department (PWD) and other departments are expected to be part of the committee. Repeated digging of roads by different agencies has long been a major urban infrastructure challenge in Delhi, often leading to traffic bottlenecks, inconvenience to commuters and repeated expenditure on road repairs.
An expert technical committee will be constituted to guide the project and its expansion across the city, according to officials. The statement said the initiative would also help prevent accidental damage to existing utility lines during excavation and improve coordination between civic agencies and utility providers. Officials said MUDs would help address the problem by providing a coordinated underground framework for both existing and future utility networks.
