The reporter learned that in April this year, Xiamen and other 10 cities were identified as the pilot project of comprehensive pipeline corridor construction. In August, The General Office of the State Council issued the "Guidelines on Promoting the construction of Urban Underground Comprehensive Pipeline Corridor", which will be rolled out to the whole country. However, in the boom of underground pipeline corridor construction, it is difficult to cover the difficulty of collecting fees. According to the survey results, from the current situation in the country, most cities that have carried out underground pipeline corridor construction in the past few years are covered by the government finance and lack a clear charging policy.

The industry said that the promulgation of the guidelines to the underground pipe corridor charging clear policy support, so that the corridor pipeline is difficult to evade payment responsibility. It is clear in the Opinions that each pipeline entering the urban comprehensive underground pipeline corridor should pay the paid use fee to the construction and operation unit of the pipeline corridor, and the paid use fee standard of the urban comprehensive underground pipeline corridor should be determined by the construction and operation unit of the pipeline entering the corridor through consultation in principle, and the supply and demand parties should sign an agreement in accordance with market-oriented principles. Clarify payment methods, regular adjustment mechanism of fee standards and other matters.

The guidelines also put forward that the paid usage fee of urban underground comprehensive management corridors includes the entry fee and daily maintenance fee, which are used to cover the construction cost and daily maintenance and management expenses of the corridors respectively. Local governments should flexibly adopt various public-private partnership (PPP) models to promote the participation of social capital in the construction and operation management of urban underground comprehensive management corridors. Although the charge of underground pipeline corridor cannot match the huge construction and operation cost in a short time, the charge of underground pipeline corridor can get policy support and still greatly mobilize the enthusiasm of social capital investment.

Urban underground pipe gallery comprehensive test water paid use

Photo by Liu Xiaokai Wu Yueze

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Paid Use System of Urban Underground Comprehensive pipe Corridors" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), guiding all localities to establish and improve the paid use system of urban underground comprehensive pipe corridors, forming a reasonable charging mechanism, mobilizing the enthusiasm of social capital investment, and promoting the construction and development of urban underground comprehensive pipe corridors.

Urban underground comprehensive pipeline corridor refers to the public tunnel used for centralized laying of electric power, communication, radio and television, water supply, drainage, heat, gas and other municipal pipelines under the city, which is an important part of urban infrastructure. According to experts' estimates, the construction of underground comprehensive pipeline corridor is divided into two parts: corridor body and pipeline body. The investment of each kilometer corridor body is about 80 million yuan, and the pipeline entering corridor is about 40 million yuan. The total cost is 120 million yuan per kilometer. At the current rate of urbanization, it is expected that about 1 trillion yuan of investment will be generated annually in the next 3-5 years, which will become a key tool for China's steady growth.

In recent years, the investment mode of underground pipeline corridor construction has been gradually adjusted, and the mode of municipal engineering has been transformed into the main body of construction and operation by enterprises. However, due to the long-term use of a large number of underground pipeline corridors free of charge, it is difficult for enterprises to obtain reasonable and stable earnings, and cannot form too much attraction for social capital.