PWD guideline: Avoid cut & cover method for laying water pipelines by road side

kolkata: The Public Works Department (PWD) has come up with a detailed guideline for streamlining the process of laying of water supply pipelines under its roads across the state.

The guideline has called for avoiding cut and cover method by road side to the extent feasible, and use micro tunneling or trenchless technology for laying water pipelines particularly at the road crossings.

In exceptional cases, if micro tunneling is not feasible PWD's assistance can be sought for excavation of existing carriageway.

The Public Health & Engineering (PHE) department is working on a war footing for providing household tap connection to all 1.77 crore households across the state under Jal Swapno project within 2024. In some cases, it has been observed that certain deviations in the procedure for laying pipelines under the road was causing damage to roads. The contractors who construct roads have a guarantee period in the terms and conditions. During that period, if the road gets damaged then the contractor is held responsible and have to take up the necessary work for maintenance. "However, with roads getting damaged due to laying of water pipelines, the contractors are refusing to take up mending of the roads for valid reasons. To address this issue, we have come up with an SOP for a better liaison with the PHE department that will not slow down the process of laying water supply pipelines and at the same time will cause minimum damage to the roads," a senior official of PWD department said.

As per guidelines, laying of pipeline by canal side/ kutcha road/ village road/ irrigation ditch/ less busy road would be preferred wherever technically feasible. Under unavoidable circumstances, laying of pipelines over the road may be permitted through extreme end of Right of Way (ROW) on the road causing minimum hindrance to traffic.

A programme of work schedule will have to be communicated to the concerned executive engineer of PWD prior to commencement of pipeline laying by PHE department. In case of laying pipeline over any waterbody, PHE shall not lay the pipes on structures like bridges, flyovers under which the waterbody is flowing. Under unavoidable circumstances, due approval needs to be taken from PWD.

The department has also empowered superintending engineers of departments concerned to grant permission to shift utilities instead of referring the decisions to headquarters.