The free referral service Dial Before You Dig and electrical and gas safety regulator Energy Safe Victoria have formed an alliance in a bid to reduce the millions of dollars worth of damage caused annually to Victoria's networks of underground assets.

Dial Before You Dig is a service used by professional contractors, underground asset owners and individuals undertaking excavation, who within two working days of lodging an enquiry receive location and other relevant information assisting them to excavate securely and safely.

Dial Before You Dig chairman Scott Reid said people and companies could literally cause millions of dollars worth of damage and threaten both lives and livelihoods within seconds through careless excavation practices.

"The partnership we are announcing today with Energy Safe Victoria is another step in the right direction of ensuring the risk associated with excavation incidents are minimised," he said.

Energy Safe Victoria is supporting Dial Before You Dig by strongly encouraging all asset owners to:

• Become members of Dial Before You Dig;
• Lodge all new asset locations with the service;
• Update changes to existing asset locations with Dial Before You Dig when they occur;
• Respond to location enquiries with two working days; and
• Embrace technology to improve the quality of information provided to those people who lodge enquiries through Dial Before You Dig.

Energy Safe Victoria is also urging asset owners to commit to the development of an asset incident register, which will be coordinated by Dial Before You Dig, to monitor incident trends and mandate that all asset owners are:

• Communicating to staff and/or contractors that they have an obligation to utilise the Dial Before You Dig service; and
• Committing to support the development of guidelines for all Dial Before You Dig stakeholders including embracing the obligations of members and users of the service.

Energy Safe Victoria director of energy safety Ken Gardner said it was important to realise that cables and pipes could be anywhere.

"They are laid at varying depths on both public and private property and can be located both inside and outside of easements meaning that unsuspecting diggers can very quickly find themselves cutting essential services to their own home, or in some cases to entire towns and cities," he said.