Canal breach results in water loss

With water scarcity looming large in the city and citizens facing water cuts, thousands of litres of water is going waste due to two major leakages in the embankment of Khadakwasla right bank canal near Big Bazaar at Jaydevnagar on Sinhagad Road since 10 pm on Friday.

However, according to the area corporator Shrikant Jagtap, “The irrigation officials told the residents that the repairs can be undertaken only after March 20 when the water discharge is reduced.”

Meanwhile, the residents of nearby Mangalmurti Cooperative Housing Society immediately alerted the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and irrigation department officials after the leaked waters started water logging their premises.

The leakages were not plugged till late Saturday afternoon. The residential society’s secretary Sujit Samdekar told DNA, “The civic officials told us to contact the irrigation department as the latter would fix the leakage.”

Another resident MV Chandorkar said, “The area corporators Jagtap and Manjusha Nagpure visited the spot and contacted the irrigation department as the waters have started flowing across Sinhagad Road.”

Jagtap said, “The irrigation department officials inspected the leakages and told us that it cannot be plugged now as water was flowing in the canal. They said that if they stopped the water discharge in the canal, they will have to increase the discharge by four times of the current discharge after the repairs were over.”