Series of breakdowns halts city water supply

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

A series of crises has unfolded in the city’s water supply system over the past 12 hours. At 12.45 am on Thursday, a cable caught fire at the Jayakwadi water pumping station. Soon after, oil began leaking from a transformer. Around midnight, a 750 mm diameter water pipeline burst in front of Siddharth Garden. Later, at around 2 pm, a 1,200 mm diameter pipeline burst at Dhorkin. As a result, the city’s entire water supply was disrupted. Repair work on the pipeline at Dhorkin continued until late night. The city will have to face a water cut on Friday as well.

Over the past few days, the city’s water supply has been running smoothly. Two days ago, a new executive engineer was appointed to this section. While the engineers had just begun reviewing the water supply system, pumping operations came to a halt on Thursday night after smoke was noticed coming from the cable of Jayakwadi Pump No. 1. At the same time, oil leakage began from the transformer at the power supply substation.

Executive engineer Sachin Waykar and his team replaced the transformer and managed to restart three pumps at around 4.30 am. Meanwhile, at midnight, a 750 mm diameter pipeline carrying water towards Jubilee Park burst near Siddharth Garden. The damaged section of the pipeline was replaced, and the supply was restored in the early hours of the morning.

Subsequently, on Thursday afternoon at around 2 pm, water lifting from Jayakwadi was stopped for one hour to inspect the transformer. During this period, a 1,200 mm diameter pipeline burst at Dhorkin. Excavation work was started without stopping the water supply. At 2.30 pm, the pipeline was shut down and repair work was taken up. Notably, a 900 mm diameter pipeline runs right next to the burst pipeline, with less than six inches of distance between the two. This posed a challenge for officials in carrying out welding work late at night. In addition, the pipeline is encased in cement concrete on all sides, which also had to be broken during the night.

Water cut in the city today

As the main pipeline supplying water to the city has been shut since 2.30 pm, water supply to the city has stopped. Although the 700 mm and 900 mm diameter pipelines were operational, they supply very little water to the city and are insufficient to fill the water tanks. Therefore, the water supply section has informed that the city will face a complete water cut on Friday.