PESHAWAR, May 13: The staff of the northern region of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) complained on Friday that diggings in various parts of the city for sewerage lines were damaging PTCL cables. Sources said that the distribution box poles, optical fibre and equipment worth Rs700,000 belonging to the PTCL and at some places the cable network of National Telecom Corporation (NTC) were damaged because of the diggings undertaken by a private contractor hired by the City Development and Municipal Department (CDMD).

PTCL officials said that the CDMD had started digging without any consultation or discussing a route plan with the PTCL which had caused damage to the transmission lines and optical fibre underground.

The damage to PTCL landlines, exchange switching equipment and cable network was causing inconvenience to its subscribers for the last four months. About 18 distribution box poles at the main university road were damaged which could not be repaired.

“The PTCL cables are lying underground for the last ten years and relocating them is not possible as the digging for one project or the other has become a routine,” a divisional engineer at the Khyber Exchange said.

The PTCL had registered complaints against the damage caused to its property with all the authorities concerned. As a last option, the PTCL registered an FIR against the private company at Town Police Station on Jan 24, 2005 but no action had been taken, the officials said.

Officials of the CDMD claimed that the department had sent a route plan to the gas and telecommunication companies before undertaking diggings. “If any department or company gets affected by some project, it has to do some relocation and the CDMD pays it for shifting its equipment,” the officals said.

The CDMD has already paid Rs34 million as shifting utilities to various departments for relocation of their cables or pipes in the Suray Pull (Bridge), official said.

The PTCL (NTR-1) officials denied receiving any route plan from the CDMD.