Taps in city goes dry on Pola festival

The repair task started late in the evening.

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

The city which was already facing water scarcity these days is again pushed to face inconvenience as the 1400 mm size main pipeline got bursted at Nakshatrawadi, on Wednesday evening. Adding to the woes, the power supply got disrupted after there was sparking in the cable at the substation supplying power to Jayakwadi Dam after half an hour.

The works had been undertaken on a war-footing basis, but the citizens will have to remain without water on the festival of ‘pola’ tomorrow (Thursday).

The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) lifts water from Jayakwadi Dam and supplies to the city through 700 mm and 1400 mm main pipelines. Today at 4.30 pm, the contractor - Shrihari Associates Company - appointed by MJP was digging a trench with JCB to lay a 900 mm size pipeline in Nakshatrawadi. The air valve got damaged due to hitting JCB to the pipeline. Gallons of water got wasted for sometime. The pumping was stopped from the dam immediately, but the repairing works got started after emptying the pipeline in the late evening. So far, the contractor has damaged the pipeline four times. Meanwhile, the CSMC water supply section has informed about postponing the water supply schedule for one day as the repairing is a time-consuming task.

In addition, there were sparks in the cable wire at the substation supplying water to Jayakwadi Dam at 4.55 pm. Accordingly, the pumping of water stopped. The MSEDCL officials and personnel were alerted who then undertook the repairing immediately. The work is expected to continue till late in the night. After completion of the task at midnight, the water supply of the old city through a 700 mm size pipeline will be started, it is hoped.

It may be noted that the supply of water is made through 700 mm and 1400 mm pipelines and they have been defunct since afternoon. The distribution of water stopped. If the lifting started in the night, it would take hours at a stretch to fill all the elevated storage reservoirs (ESRs) in the city. Hence the water supply will be affected on the ‘pola’ festival. It is also learnt that the power supply of Pharola water treatment plant was disrupted for two and a half hours on Tuesday afternoon. Hence the water supply was already affected, but with today’s incident the situation has manifolded.