Civic body officials have failed to resolve the issue in the past 42 days.
At a time when the state is reeling under drought and potable water has become a luxury, the lethargy of BMC officials has resulted in wastage of nearly 45,000 litre water in Chembur area. While 250 families of Kastur Park, an affluent society in Chembur, have been crying foul over the leakage inside their premises since March 1, clueless BMC officials are yet to find out the exact pipeline causing the leakage. Residents of the society, some of whom are civil engineers, claim that over 1,000 litre potable water is being wasted every day during the three hours of water supply, and as BMC officials have failed to resolve the issue in the past 42 days, a total of approximately 45,000 litre potable water has been wasted even as the city faces water cuts.
Residents of Kastur Park, which houses five buildings and 250 families, said that the issue came to the fore on March 1 when they saw water seeping from a particular section adjacent to their gate. “We thought it was a minor drainage issue and called a plumber to fix it. However, after digging a bit, he looked clueless about the source of leakage and we urged him to stop digging, thinking that other pipelines too might get damaged,” said S. Correa, a senior citizen of the society. He added that as the plumber dug the concrete surface, the entire pit would fill up with water and during the three hours of water supply, look like a fountain.
The society was built 38 years ago. Members of the society confirmed that they had repaired all pipelines of the society in 2008 and had never faced water shortage ever since the time they started living there. However, after stumbling upon the leakage, they started facing water shortage and supply was curtailed by two hours. The secretary of the society, Vinod Subramanian, confirmed that they had written a letter to BMC officials of M East Ward about the issue and within three days of writing the letter, around seven to eight officials from the hydraulic department visited the society to review the situation.
“After they reviewed the pit, they went back saying that they would come again to resolve the issue. They again showed up after four days and kept digging further to check the source of leakage. Neither were they able to figure out which pipeline was affected nor were they able to find out from where the water was coming,” said Mr Subramanian.
Apparently, the officials came on three different occasions, even cut three pipes to check if they were causing the leakage. Residents claimed that they were asked by the officials to bring a pump and drain the pit themselves to find the source of leakage.
“Last week, they came along with an engineer, thanks to whom, the workers stopped short of cutting the gas line. Eventually when they all seemed clueless, we merely asked them to make way for the water to seep into the nullah as otherwise, it would flood our society every day between 3.30pm and 5.30pm,” added Mr Correa.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner for M east ward, was clueless about the issue and said he would send water department staff to check the leakage. When informed that his staff members, including engineers had been unable to figure out the exact source of leakage for the past 42 days, he said, “I didn’t know about the problem, but I will try and sort it out. I will immediately send staff members and enquire about the problem.”
