Ho Chi Minh City is moving its power and telecoms wires underground, but the haphazard manner in which it is doing so could make things worse in the future.

But as the city has yet to issue the standards for such underground construction projects, the work on projects with similar aims is being conducted completely differently at various sites around the city.

On Tran Hung Dao Street, for example, a steel and concrete ditch is being built and divided into two parts, one for power lines and one telecom wires. But on Le Thanh Ton Street, wires will be put in plastic pipes and then buried 75 centimeters underground with no concrete support.

City authorities are now concerned that the lack of cooperation on such projects will make it difficult to undertake any other underground construction work in these areas in the future.

Tran Van Thanh, an officer from the HCMC Telecommunications Company, said all telecom companies in the city had agreed to place their wires underground as part of a sweeping VND4 billion/kilometer project approved by the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group.

The Ho Chi Minh City Telecommunications Company sent notes to its 19 members last month saying that telecom wires on 16 streets in Districts 3 and Tan Binh would be buried in pipes next year.

According to the city Department of Information and Communications, some smaller telecom firms have asked sidewalk construction firms to help move their wires underground.

The HCMC Information and Communications Department has required that district governments and traffic managers seek approval from the department or the city Department of Industry and Trade before letting any telecom or power firm move their wires underground.

The city Architecture and Planning Department is supposed to have already drafted a master plan for underground construction, but it has yet to do so.

Source: Tuoi Tre