If you were hoping that the new year would bring you some respite from water woes, perish the thought. On Gudi Padwa, the first day of the Marathi new year, you will face the severest of the cuts so far.
On the auspicious day, the BMC has been forced to take the inauspicious decision of imposing an additional 20% water cut. Reason: the main Tansa pipeline burst at Walpada in Bhiwandi taluka. A 10-ft section of the 72-inch mains passing through the village was ruptured.
The incident, which happened at 5:30pm on Monday, resulted in the formation of a 100-ft-deep pit below the ruptured portion. The water that gushed out from the pipeline spread across the fields in Wal and Gundavli villages. Locals said that within an hour it reached Kashele creek.
The pipeline carries water from Tansa lake to Mumbai, a distance of over 100km. Last year, too, it was ruptured twice. But this time the rupture is worse, forcing the BMC to impose a cut for the next few days.
The pipeline that was ruptured is part of the Tansa (East) main line, which carries water from the lake to the master balancing reservoir at Bhandup, where the water is treated before it is supplied to the city. As the main pipeline has been damaged, the supply of the entire city has been affected, more particularly of the western part.
“It will take at least two days for the pipeline to be repaired,” deputy municipal commissioner Dineshchandra Gondalia said. “We tried to arrest the flow of water immediately, but because it is a huge pipeline it took time.”
Gondalia could not say for certain how long the repair work would take, “but we are trying to hasten it,” he said. Additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar said the pipeline got ruptured as it was old. The Tansa pipeline was laid by the British in 1898.
“These lines cannot bear the pressure any more,” Diggikar said. “We have to isolate the pipeline for repairs. Till then, the city will face an additional 20% water cut.”
Hydraulic engineers from the Tansa section said
they would try to ease the situation. “There will be isolation of the main water pipeline and we will divert it to the Tansa (West) pipeline,” one engineer said. “We will have to take care as that line too is over a century old. It would be risky to increase the pressure.”
(With inputs from Deepa Sarna)
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