With the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) starting to move their overhead cables underground along Osmeña Boulevard, another firm is following suit.
An official from the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Co. told the Cebu City Council last Wednesday during an executive session that they will also follow Veco’s move.
“The project has been approved in Manila and we’re just waiting for our permits to be approved before we can start,” said engineer Dodong Cruz, PLDT staff.
The P6 million project will cover all PLDT cable wires along both sides of Osmeña Boulevard from the Capitol to the Fuente Osmeña rotunda. This is the same site where Veco is also implementing the underground cable project.
Cruz said they are already waiting for the construction and excavation permits to be issued by the City Hall’s Technical Infrastructure Committee.
He said PLDT would have wanted to coordinate with Veco to jointly take the transferring of wires on the same excavation, but the two companies couldn’t come up with an agreement.
Cruz said they are targeting to complete the project before the year ends.
“It will depend on when the city can give the permit, the skills of workers and the weather. But we hope to complete it before 2015,” Cruz said.
He added that the PLDT has been planning to do the project since last year, but this was just approved this year because it needed a large capital.
Meanwhile, the City Council has requested city engineer Jose Marie Poblete to check with other utilities that might want to follow after Veco and PLDT in transfering their overhead wires underground.
The request came after Poblete said that the Department of Engineering and Public Works has still not constituted or formed the Utility Lines Installation Coordinating Committee (ULICC), which is required by City Ordinance 1984.
The ordinance aims to “regulate a utility set up that will be safe, secure and aesthetically pleasing for the Cebu City Constituents.”
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