The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has hit upon a new idea to control digging of roads. Authorities have decided to charge agencies by the metre for the cables or pipes they work on. Roads in the city are often known to be excavated for different reasons by different utility organisations to fix power lines, lay down new optical fibre cables by the telephone company, or gas pipes by the gas agency.

After the job is completed, usually the trench is covered up in a superficial way. But, when thousands of vehicles pass over this patched-up road, it creates potholes around the dug-up area. These are called utility trenches. The civic body will now levy an ‘access charge’ on these bodies in an effort to control their activities and hopefully, reduce the number of dug-up stretches in the city.