Mumbai: Cities choose monopole over electric towers

Mumbai: In order to overcome space crunch issues faced by electric towers, Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited (MAHATransco) has come up with monopole. The process of removing electric tower and placing monopole is a costly affair. However, cities, city-centric big projects and big developers have been opting for it due to its aesthetics.

“Big projects like metro, monorail and new airports have been coming up in major cities. Also there are road-widening works in progress. In cities, electric towers some time become major hurdle in construction work, which can’t be totally removed as it affects electricity supply. We suggest monopole as a solution rather than shifting tower as it requires space and disturbs the view of the site,” said a MAHATransco senior official.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has been asked to shift an electric tower near Sonapur station in Bhandup for Metro-4 line. “MAHATransco will conduct joint inspection with MMRDA and then decide,” the officer said.  

In spite of monopole being costlier affair, people are paying for it as it requires less space. “Since there are very few companies that manufacture monopole, it is costlier,” the officer added.

The officer added that the monopole systems are been enormously implemented in Nagpur and Nashik. “The monopole needs underground cement-concrete structure to build pole stand. This base takes a lot of underground space and thus that much land becomes unfit any other purposes,” said the officer.