Mumbai coastal road work: Water supply in 50 buildings affected

According to assistant civic commissioner Chakrapani Alle, the pipeline is likely to be fixed by Monday night

Hundreds of residents in Marine Drive have not been getting water for more than two days owing to pipeline damage during the coastal road work. Residents from the buildings on A, B, C, E, F and G Roads have also complained of receiving muddy water.

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is carrying out the construction of the coastal road between Princess Street Flyover and Worli over the 9-km stretch that passes by the sea. BMC officials said around 50 buildings at Marine Drive are affected due to the water pipeline burst.

According to assistant civic commissioner Chakrapani Alle, the pipeline is likely to be fixed by Monday night. “The burst was reported due to the piling work of the coastal road. Our water repair department is working on it. We’ve also informed the department concerned to levy penalty on the contractor.”

“We are on the job [to repair the pipeline] since Saturday. The repairing took time because we could detect the source of the pipeline burst only by Monday morning. Also, there was waterlogging due to the pipeline burst. We’re now working to fix it,” an official from the water supply department said.

Residents claim that BMC did not arrange for alternative water supply by providing water tankers for all buildings. “Though BMC started the work immediately, they told us that couldn’t detect the source of the damage. Now we’ve been told that the supply shall resume by Monday or Tuesday,” said Purshottam Hemdev who resides on G Road.

He added, “In the past two days, we didn’t get any help from BMC. We understand that it was an unplanned maintenance work, but the least BMC could have done is arranged for alternative water supply channel. We had to arrange for water supply tankers ourselves on Monday.”

Mahendra Hemdev, a resident of D Road said their corporator arranged for water by providing tankers. “The coastal road work should be smooth and no resident must be affected. We are hopeful that water supply will be restored by tomorrow [Tuesday], and no such incident takes place in the future.”

Local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Akash Purohit said, “Never has there been a water supply issue at Marine Drive. My society is also not getting water since Sunday, and we hope BMC will fix the pipeline damage and handle such situations better henceforth.”

Marine Drive residents had complained of facing water cuts and contaminated water in November 2020 too, owing to pipeline burst because of the coastal road work.