During independent investigations, Express Newsline found VMC charges against the DoT -- that it wasn't laying the phone cables deep enough -- to be all too valid. DoT general manager Rakesh Babu, too, admitted as much, but claimed that present and future projects would take care not to repeat the mistake.

In the meantime, however, scores of phones are at risk because of cables laid higher than the prescribed three-feet depth. Perhaps the most vulnerable are the ones in Gotri Road, Waghodia, Alkapuri and GIDC Makarpura.

In Gotri as in Makarpura, Express Newsline found that the most superficial of digging operations had exposed cable wires. In the Alkapuri division alone, a majority of the 38,000-odd telephone connections are liable to be disrupted during the monsoons for the same reason. In fact, more than 600 lines have already gone out of order; more may follow.

While the VMC and the DoT trade charges, phone subscribers unequivocally hold the telecom department responsible. Says vice-president of the Telephone Subscribers' Association Ajitsinh Gaekwad, ``Primarily, the telephone people are to be blamed for the mess. There's hardly any place in the city where lines have not been laid in violation of specifications. In certain areas, lines are just three or four lines below the surface.''

The DoT is deemed to have faltered on the supervision front as well. Union leaders in the department admit that phone cables are laid too close to the surface as there were no telecom officials to watch over the process. ``If you leave the job to labourers, who're unaware of the technicalities of the process, this is what's going to happen. Supervision is near-absent'', reveals a union leader. Gaekwad agrees.

Babu, however, denies the charge. ``I have instructed all the divisional engineers to personally visit cable-laying sites and oversee the work'', he says. But what about the exposed cables all over the city? The GM reiterates once again that that ``was in the past''.

But the DoT has no immediate intentions of burying the exposed cables; in fact, department sources say they'll have to wait for the phones to go out of order before they can detect the faults. So the first repair work can be undertaken only after the monsoons.

And it's now apparent that the DoT, which started the war of words (the controversy started when the department lambasted the VMC for reckless digging), will have to pay dearly for shooting its mouth off.