The Narendra Modi government has approved the national rollout of the ‘Call Before u Dig’ (CBuD) App, seen as a revolutionary move to save crores of rupees in losses due to damage to underground cables and fibre due to perpetual digging by one agency or other.
Earlier this month, Mumbai Airport operations got affected for almost two hours due to optical fibre being cut during underground Metro construction work near the airport. So how will this app work? The development of the app is complete and its national rollout is proposed to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi next year. News18 takes a detailed look.
How It Will Work?
The CBuD App will coordinate all proposed digging activities and safeguard existing underlying utility assets like optical fibre cables, water pipelines, electric cables, gas pipelines etc from damages. It will provide an interface and communication channel between the digging agencies and utility asset owners.
Diggers will know the contact details of utility asset owners for coordination before start of digging by contacting asset owner and sending alerts to authorities informing proposed digging activity. Utility owners will know about imminent digging activity near their utility assets and can interact with diggers.
Diggers and utility asset owners will be given alerts via SMS, email and in-app notification and will also have the facility of ‘click to call’. A helpdesk number will support the users. The CBuD app will be integrated with PM GatiShakti NMP platform and shall utilize the mapped underground utility details at NMP.
How It Will Benefit?
Many utilities can be saved from unwanted cuts and wasteful cost of restoration, thus saving thousands of crores for businesses and associated tax loss to the government, the app envisions. Dashboard for status of digging activities ‘gone wrong’ will be used to monitor the performance of associated contractors and such diggers can be identified and counselled.
The owners of all the utility assets can come to know about imminent digging by any agency around their utility assets and take precautionary measures. All the appropriate utility authorities and diggers will be connected to the electronic platform. Scheduled digging and uniformity will be possible.
In-app alerts on every stage will result in better coordination between the digger and other utility owners. The app will also allow the digger to submit all the required information to all the utility asset owners at one place and diggers need not spend time in finding contact details of different utility providers.
The Nitty-Gritty
On the app, the diggers can easily navigate on map for registering digging information. They can mark the location of digging. Total distance of digging will be shown on map. Owners of all utility assets can come to know about imminent digging by any agency around their utility assets and take precautionary measures viz. do flagging on ground around their utility assets, before the actual digging and coordinate with the digger.
The Centre has now asked states for mapping of contact details of officials of utility or asset owner agencies in the database of the app. All underground utility and asset owner agencies viz. electricity cables, water-pipe, gas-pipe, sewerage etc. are being directed by states to do so. They will be mandated to respond to messages from CBuD App and take actions accordingly, even if they have mapped or not mapped their assets, it is proposed.
All digging agencies will be mandated by states to do any type of digging only after prior intimation through CBuD app and as per its terms and conditions. The idea also is to ensure that inconvenience caused to citizens because of frequent breakdown be reduced due to better synergy between agencies.
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