Snag hits water supply

Over a million households in south Kolkata received less than half their supply of filtered water on Wednesday after several pumps broke down at the Garden Reach waterworks.

The situation may improve on Thursday if engineers manage to repair the valve of a stand-by pump on Wednesday night. If the valve cannot be repaired then the water crisis would continue for the next few days.

Tollygunge, Ranikuthi, Bansdroni, Pujali, Garden Reach, Garfa, Behala and some other pockets south of Bhowanipore were affected.

The civic body supplied filtered water to these areas for half the usual duration in the morning and evening to tackle the shortfall of over 30 million gallon. Residents complained that water came in a trickle through taps even during the curtailed slots.

The Garden Reach waterworks, which supplies 80 million gallon of filtered water daily, is run by the Kolkata Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority.

An engineer of the authority said three intake pumps (two working and one standby) in phase-I were over 25 years old and need to be replaced immediately.

“At 4am, one of the pumps broke down. The valve of the standby pump was found to be broken. Of the five pumps in phase-II, two have been down for over two years. Another pump stopped working soon after it was started,” said the engineer.

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee visited the waterworks along with the chief engineer (water supply) of the civic body, Bibhas Maity, and met engineers of the facility.

The engineers told Chatterjee that about Rs 10 crore was immediately needed to replace the pumps and they were facing a funds crunch.

The mayor told them that the civic body would provide the funds if necessary.


The Telegraph Metro