Utility Damage Report India 2026: Fibre, Power and Gas

What does this utility damage report for India cover?

This India utility damage report gathers every published, checkable figure we could find on digging damage to fibre, power cables, gas lines and water mains. Each number carries a source. India has no national register of excavation damage, so the picture is pieced together from DoT statements, regulator filings, Parliament replies and news reports.

Three rules applied. A number appears only if a named source published it, and an old figure carries its age. Where the only evidence is a single incident, we report it without stretching it into a trend. The figures are as available on 8 November 2026, and the report will be revised each year.

Anyone looking for a single utility damage report India can rely on finds scattered numbers instead. Why is the data so patchy? Damage is reported to whoever owns the line, so the utility records of each strike stay with that owner. A telecom operator logs a fibre cut as an outage ticket, a discom as a cable fault and a water board as a burst. Few of these logs are public, none are pooled, and many minor hits are repaired quietly by the contractor who caused them.

The report is for site engineers, network planners, municipal officers and contractors who need an honest view of how often accidental utility strikes happen and what they cost.

How many fibre cuts happen in India each year?

The most widely quoted official estimate is nearly 10 lakh optical fibre cuts a year from digging and excavation, costing about ₹3,000 crore annually. The government gave these figures in January 2023, when it notified the Indian Telegraph (Infrastructure Safety) Rules, 2022.¹

Spread over a year, 10 lakh cuts would mean roughly 2,700 a day across the country (our arithmetic on the official estimate). Fibre is exposed because it often runs in plastic ducts at shallow depth along road edges. That is the same strip that drainage, road widening and other utility crews dig into. A plain HDPE duct also gives no signal to a cable locator unless a tracer wire was laid with it.

No newer national count has been published since, as far as we can find. That is itself a finding: India’s best-known fibre cut number is close to four years old, and it was an estimate, not a tally of incidents.

Operators still say third-party digging is a routine cause of outages. BSNL commented on TRAI’s draft Quality of Service amendments in August 2026. It listed fibre cuts by third parties and road-owning agencies “in the course of digging or civil works” as causes it cannot control. It noted that restoration after such events often runs beyond 24 hours.² BSNL also pointed out that one fibre cut caused by third-party excavation could attract several separate penalties under the draft.²

The regulatory pressure on outages is rising. Under TRAI’s draft, a customer hit by an outage of more than 24 hours would receive a bill rebate or extra validity. Penalties for repeated breaches could go up to ₹10 lakh.³ TRAI imposed about ₹1.88 crore in financial disincentives on four operators in FY26, against ₹19 lakh in FY25.³ Those penalties cover quality of service in general, not fibre cuts alone, but every unplanned cut now carries a clearer regulatory cost.

What does the law say about damaging telecom cables?

Under Section 42 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, anyone who damages a telecommunication network must pay compensation for the damage and can be fined up to ₹50 lakh. Damage to infrastructure notified as critical is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of up to ₹2 crore, or both.⁴

Two sets of rules sit around the Act:

• Indian Telegraph (Infrastructure Safety) Rules, 2022: anyone planning to dig where telecom infrastructure may be damaged must give notice through a common portal at least one month in advance. The excavator must follow the licensee’s precautions and pay damage charges based on restoration cost if a cable is cut.¹
• Telecommunications (Right of Way) Rules, 2024: made under the 2023 Act, they let public entities attach conditions when granting right of way and set out the procedure for compensation claims. DoT has advised states and union territories to issue similar government orders for damage to their own buried utilities.⁷

State orders are now adding detail on who pays. Punjab’s CBuD notification, for example, covers an excavator who damages an asset through negligence after the owner has replied “Asset Available” and shared its location. That excavator is liable for damage charges fixed by the asset owner.⁸ Once the owner has answered the notice, the burden of finding the line precisely shifts to the person holding the excavator. A reply that a cable runs “along the road” does not tell a JCB operator where to stop.

We cover the penalty side in more depth in our fibre cut penalty in India explained note. For this report, the point is that a careless excavator’s legal exposure now far exceeds the repair bill.

Has Call Before u Dig reduced utility damage?

Call Before u Dig (CBuD) has widened the net of who must give notice before digging, but no public figure yet shows how far it has cut damage. The Prime Minister launched the app on 22 March 2023.⁵ It was developed by DoT with BISAG-N and runs as an Android and iOS app and as a web portal at cbud.gov.in.⁶

An excavator marks the dig area on a map and sees which asset owners are affected. The owners get SMS, email and in-app alerts and reply whether their asset is present.⁶ The app covers optical fibre, drinking water pipelines, electric cables and gas pipelines.⁷

What the record shows so far:

• The Communications Minister gave a written Lok Sabha reply on 11 March 2026. He said the Centre had asked all states and union territories to make CBuD use mandatory for state departments. These include public works, urban local bodies and water, gas and electricity utilities. Telecom operators had lodged complaints on the platform about unreported excavations.⁷
• Punjab issued a notification dated 7 February 2025 making CBuD compulsory before digging on public property and asking public entities to add a CBuD clause in work orders.⁸
• In Bihar, a DoT review reported in May 2025 counted 1,358 excavations over the previous year, of which 220 went ahead without any CBuD notice. Over 3,900 departments and 1,300 agencies were registered on the app at the time.⁹
• The Centre has also asked states and central ministries to map underground utility assets on the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan so that CBuD alerts reach the right owner.⁷

The Bihar figure is the closest thing to a compliance rate in the public record: roughly one dig in six skipped the notice. It is one state’s snapshot, not a national rate. For how the app works on the ground, see a closer look at Call Before You Dig in India.

What about power cables, gas pipelines and water mains?

For other underground utilities the evidence is thinner and comes mostly from distribution companies and news reports. It points the same way: unplanned digging is a regular cause of damage.

Power cables

In April 2018 a BSES spokesperson said about 800 to 1,000 underground power cables were damaged every year in its Delhi areas by unplanned digging. The discoms set up “Dial n Dig” helplines so that civic bodies and telecom companies could warn them before work started.¹⁰ Tata Power-DDL runs about 3,400 circuit km of high and medium voltage underground cable in North Delhi. It issued a similar advisory in February 2020 with a toll-free Dial Before You Dig number, 1800-11-5400. The advisory warned that agencies damaging its cables could be made to pay repair and replacement costs.¹¹ Both figures are old; we have not found a newer published count.

Gas pipelines

The exposure keeps growing. PNGRB data show 27,905 km of natural gas pipeline in operation and 8,551 km under construction as on 31 March 2026. The same data list 307 authorised city gas distribution areas and 1.69 crore domestic PNG connections.¹² A gas strike causes service disruptions beyond the repair itself. The area is cleared, the section valve shut and supply stopped for every connection downstream until the line is restored. Two recent strikes show the pattern:

• On 9 March 2026 a JCB digging for drainage work on Gangapur Road, Nashik, struck an MNGL gas pipeline. The valve was shut and supply in the area suspended. The line was repaired within hours, and no casualties were reported.¹³
• On 8 December 2023 a civic contractor working on a drainage line in Dahisar (east), Mumbai, damaged an MGL pipeline, disrupting gas supply to several localities.¹⁴

Water mains

Water lines suffer most visibly because a burst floods the road. In Bhopal, pipelines were reportedly damaged 21 times in 30 days during metro expansion and highway bypass construction. The Municipal Corporation imposed a cumulative penalty of ₹27.27 lakh on the metro authorities and NHAI, and about two lakh residents were affected.¹⁵ In Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune Metro work broke a 1,200 mm water main in Nigdi on 25 September 2025, cutting supply for a full day in several areas.¹⁶ In Kochi, a pipeline burst during Kochi Metro Phase II piling in December 2025. The report said KMRL had asked the water authority for detailed network maps that had not been fully shared.¹⁷

The Kochi case states the root problem most clearly: the digging team had no reliable utility maps of what lay below. That is the gap that details of pre-excavation scanning on our service page explain how to close.

Incidents at a glance

Table note: these are reported incidents, not a complete count. Many strikes never reach the news. To see what buried services look like on a scan before digging, read GPR Radargram Library.

What do damage figures from other countries tell India?

Countries that log every strike can see which causes to fix; India cannot yet do that. In the United States, the Common Ground Alliance’s DIRT database recorded 221,717 unique damage reports in 2025. Telecom and cable TV lines made up 51% of incidents. Failure to call the one-call centre before digging was the leading known root cause, at 22.3%.¹⁸ A separate CGA study put the wider economic impact of utility damage at $83.2 billion a year, with direct repairs only about 5.9% of that total.¹⁹

The lesson lies in the method, not the size of the American number. Each strike is reported with a cause, so the industry knows that missed notices, poor marking and lack of clearance after marking are the main levers. India now has the notice tool in CBuD and a legal duty in the 2023 Act. What is missing is an open, regular dataset of strikes by cause, utility and city. Until that exists, every such report, including this one, rests on estimates and anecdotes.

How can a project stay out of next year’s report?

Give notice, collect existing records, scan before digging, prove the scan with trial pits and hand the next team an accurate drawing. Most of the incidents above needed only the first three steps.

1. File the CBuD notice early. The Infrastructure Safety Rules ask for one month’s notice.¹ Early notice gives asset owners time to send their route plans.
2. Collect records, then test them. Old drawings miss abandoned lines, shifted cables and private services, so treat each existing utility on paper as a lead.
3. Scan the corridor. A ground penetrating radar survey with an electromagnetic locator finds metallic and non-metallic lines, including HDPE ducts that carry fibre. The radar reads reflected pulses from each buried object, while the locator traces energised cables.
4. Confirm with trial pits, dug by hand or by vacuum excavation, at crossings and where the scan is unclear.
5. Record the result. A geo-referenced drawing through CAD and GIS utility mapping lets the next contractor avoid the same lines.

Trenchless work needs the same care. On an HDD shot the bore head travels blind between the entry and exit pits, so every crossing on that path needs a depth before drilling. Our crews scan the full bore alignment and mark crossings with depth, not only the pit locations. A strike in the middle of a bore is the hardest one to see and to repair.

For readers who plan long routes and large construction projects, there is more about big infrastructure projects in India that are likely to need such a survey.

Our GPR rates are ₹24 per metre for a standard scan and ₹32 per metre with an L-section. The minimum order is ₹50,000 in Delhi NCR and ₹1,00,000 elsewhere in India. Whole-order discounts are 25% above 100 km, 40% above 500 km and 50% above 1,000 km; GST is extra. In Delhi NCR, a crew is on site on order day, with one business day as the ceiling. Send the route and you can get a quick estimate.

Mezux Touch compiled this report from public sources. No agency named in it commissioned or reviewed the report.

Sources

1. Outlook Business (PTI), “Government notifies rules to make entities pay for causing damage to telecom infra”, January 2023. www.outlookbusiness.com
2. BSNL, comments to TRAI on draft amendments to the QoS Regulations, letter dated 28 August 2026. www.trai.gov.in
3. Outlook Business, “What TRAI’s draft asks of telcos and why BSNL objects”, 2 October 2026. www.outlookbusiness.com
4. The Telecommunications Act, 2023 – Section 42 (text). lawgist.in
5. ThePrint, “Call Before u Dig: PM Modi launches app to help prevent uncoordinated digging”, 22 March 2023. theprint.in
6. Department of Telecommunications, Call Before u Dig page, DoT eServices portal. eservices.dot.gov.in
7. Lokmat Times (PTI), “Govt acts to prevent damage to underground utilities during telecom cable laying: Scindia”, 11 March 2026. www.lokmattimes.com
8. Government of Punjab, Department of Industries & Commerce, CBuD mandate notification dated 07.02.2025 (hosted by DoT). www.eservices.dot.gov.in
9. Patna Press, “Bihar enforces Rs 50 lakh fine for road excavation without online notice via CBUD app”, 6 May 2025. patnapress.com
10. Business Standard (PTI), “BSES launches campaign to prevent unplanned digging outages”, 13 April 2018. business-standard.com
11. Tata Power-DDL, press release: advisory for civic utilities on digging near underground cable network, 27 February 2020. www.tatapower-ddl.com
12. PNGRB, Statistical Booklet (data as on 31 March 2026). www.pngrb.gov.in
13. Free Press Journal, “Nashik: major gas leak after MNGL pipeline bursts during excavation on Gangapur Road”, 10 March 2026. www.freepressjournal.in
14. ThePrint (PTI), “Gas pipeline leaks after damage due to excavation work in Mumbai”, 8 December 2023. theprint.in
15. Free Press Journal, “Bhopal Municipal Corporation slaps ₹27.27 lakh penalty on Metro, NHAI over pipeline damage”, 29 May 2026. www.freepressjournal.in
16. Free Press Journal, “Pimpri-Chinchwad: Pune Metro work in Nigdi breaks PCMC’s 1200 mm diameter water pipeline”, 25 September 2025. www.freepressjournal.in
17. Onmanorama, “Pipe burst during Kochi Metro work floods roads, disrupts water supply”, 15 December 2025. www.onmanorama.com
18. Cabling Installation & Maintenance, “Underground utility damage worsened in 2025, and telecom networks got hit the most” (CGA DIRT preview), 6 August 2026. www.cablinginstall.com
19. Water Online, “New report: underground utility damage costs America $83.2 billion a year” (Common Ground Alliance), 13 August 2026. www.wateronline.com

Frequently asked questions

Is there an official count of utility damage in India?

No. India has no national register of excavation damage. The most quoted figure, nearly 10 lakh fibre cuts a year costing about ₹3,000 crore, is a government estimate given in January 2023.

Which utility is damaged most often during excavation in India?

Published Indian data do not rank utilities. Fibre has the only national estimate. Delhi discom BSES reported 800–1,000 power cable damages a year in 2018, and water and gas strikes appear regularly in city news.

Is the Call Before u Dig app compulsory?

The Infrastructure Safety Rules require advance notice through the common portal, and the Centre has asked every state to mandate CBuD for its departments. Punjab did so by notification in February 2025. Check your state’s order and your work order clause.

What happens if a contractor cuts a fibre cable?

Under Section 42 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, the person must pay compensation and can be fined up to ₹50 lakh. Damage to critical telecom infrastructure can lead to imprisonment of up to three years.

Can GPR prevent every utility strike?

No method is perfect. GPR with an electromagnetic locator, backed by records and trial pits, finds most buried lines and helps reduce risks. Our article explains the full method – read Utility Mapping and Strike Prevention.

How often will this report be updated?

Once a year, and sooner if DoT, TRAI, PNGRB or a state publishes a new national figure. Each number keeps its source and date so readers can check it.

Written by Saniya Parveen · Technically reviewed by Rahul Rai · Updated 8 November 2026