Price of progress: in 5 years,55 pipes burst,Rs 85 lakh repair bill,lots of water wasted

“We have written several letters but none of them has paid the dues. More than the money,we are concerned about the damage done to pipelines,water wasted and inconvenience caused to citizens,” said an official from the water maintenance department.

“There are no pending dues with the BMC as the contractors have been told to pay the penalty,” said additional chief engineer (MMRDA) Col Anant Pahal.

Pipelines have been ruptured 14 times in the island city,30 times in western suburbs and 11 times in the eastern suburbs. As many as 29 have burst in the last year-and-a-half alone. The MMRDA has dug up several city roads in the western suburbs for the Metro project and officials said most of the bursts have been here.

“None of the agencies makes trial pits to judge the depth at which the utilities are laid. Since labourers are ignorant about the underground network,any major piling work beyond two metres can burst a pipeline,” the official said.

Officials said it takes at least 24 hours to repair a pipeline. Though the exact quantity of water wasted cannot be judged,they said it can range from 1,000 litres to 10 million litres in a single burst. “If the burst happens during supply hours,wastage is inevitable. It becomes difficult to find an isolation point and hold back the supply before carrying our repair works.”

A civic standing committee meeting was adjourned for 10 minutes on Wednesday after members condemned the lack of coordination between MMRDA and BMC. Ruling Sena corporators blamed municipal commissioner Swadheen Kshatriya for not acting tough on the Congress-controlled MMRDA.

The BMC will now hold a joint meeting with MMRDA and other agencies. “We will give permission to dig roads only after approving the working drawing designs of the agencies and if there is any burst,they will be charged commercial rates for water wastage,” said additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar.