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Weren’t told about pipe, says MMRDA; BMC to probe Metro ‘error’
Mumbai
Mumbai
While scores of citizens suffered for almost four days after leakages in a water pipeline owing to Metro construction led to water cuts, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Sunday said it will investigate whether a penalty can be levied on Metro authorities or the contractor for the ‘error.’
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) claimed the BMC did not inform it about the utility on that stretch. However, the MMRDA also said it was not interested in the blame game, further claiming it was providing all possible assistance to the BMC over the issue.
The pipeline burst after the piling rig drill being used for Metro work struck it on January 29. Officials of the MMRDA informed the BMC, asking it to stop the flow of water. In the meanwhile, the MMRDA diverted the water flow towards nearby drainage to avoid waterlogging in the area.
The MMRDA in its earlier statement had maintained that engineers found out that they were not informed precisely about this pipeline. The MMRDA had stated, “Before starting our piling work, we had requested BMC to provide the marking of the underground utility beneath the Right Of Way (ROW) of Metro line 6. However, the marking did not match with the damaged pipeline, as the BMC had inaccurately marked it on the other side of the alignment, which unfortunately led in damaging the pipeline.”
However, on Sunday, a senior MMRDA official said, “We did not intend to start any blame game, considering we also agree that any incident on Metro site makes us responsible for it. We are providing all possible help to the BMC for better functioning.”
Ajay Rathod, chief engineer of the BMC’s hydraulics department, said, “We have already informed earlier that they should be careful while working near utilities that of water supply and do excavation manually. Now, we will have to check, if there was any wrongdoing on their part. If there is any wrongdoing, we can penalise them for the same. However, we will have to investigate the matter.”
Meanwhile, Abhijit Samant, local BJP corporator from Vile Parle, said, “I agree that these pipelines are very old, and it becomes difficult for anyone to keep a tab on them, but the BMC needs to have their utilities mapped accurately, especially when their breaking can impact thousands of citizens.”
The MMRDA expressed regret over the incident.
“We regret the incident that has occurred of the pipeline burst at SEEPZ however would like to bring to your notice that though the burst was due to piling work being carried out which started after due confirmation from BMC that there is no pipeline as per our marked alignment,” MMRDA tweeted on February 1.
