The leakage was detected on August 30 on the service road of Western Express Highway near Bandra (east)
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's hydraulic department on Friday will undertake a challenging 30 hours repair work, to fix a major water leakage from a 96-inch pipeline supplying drinking water to Dharavi area of G/North ward. During the work, starting at 10 am, water supply to Dharavi and few other areas will remain suspended.
The leakage was detected on August 30 on the service road of Western Express Highway near Bandra (east). Locals from the area complained that millions of litre of drinking water have since gone down the drain.
As per Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, it took them almost two to three days to locate the leaking pipeline as it was 30-feet below the ground surface. The work was also delayed as it required suspending water supply to Dharavi and Bandra terminus area, which was considered unfeasible due to ongoing Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
Chief Engineer Hydraulics department, Shrikant Arghade said that as per plans the work will be carried out from Friday for which they will be suspending the water supply in areas like Dharavi of the G/north ward for 30 hours- between 10am on Friday to 4pm on Saturday.
"It's a massive 2,600 mm upper Vaitarna main pipe probably 70 to 80-year-old. Also just above this pipeline is another 1,200 mm pipe that supplies water to Bandra area," said a senior official adding that carrying out the repair work will be a mammoth task.
Litres Wasted
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The leakage was detected on August 30 on the service road of Western Express Highway near Bandra (east)
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| Locals from the area complained that millions of litre of drinking water have since been wasted |
A team of almost 20 staff from the hydraulic department has been regularly working at the site since August 30.
A major hurdle for the team was also that due to the narrow width of the service road, bigger machinery, as well as vehicles, could not be brought to the site.
An official explained that once the water supply is suspended, they will have to first de-water the pipelines, which will mean draining out close to 30 million litres of water from the pipelines to begin repairs.
"This work is not being done by contractors but BMC engineers and around 90 staff would work round the clock for 30 hours to fix the leakage by repairing it. Even we feel terrible about the water that has been wasted but there seemed to have been no option," said another senior civic official.
Tejas Shah, a Borivali resident whose office is located very close to the leakage site said that he was appalled to see such wastage of drinking water everyday for over ten days now.
"During such times if BMC can't repair a water leakage leakages it should ideally allow tankers to fill water from such points so that instead of being wasted this precious water can be used," said Shah.
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