Taps run dry due to power snag at Basai water plant

The city may be staring at a severe water crisis as several parts of Gurgaon did not receive supply on Saturday due to power failure at the sole water plant at Basai which is managed by the Huda. Dhananjay Jha reports.

The city may be staring at a severe water crisis as several parts of Gurgaon did not receive supply on Saturday due to power failure at the sole water plant at Basai which is managed by the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda).

HT Image

A major fault on Saturday morning in the electricity cable caused a two-hour shutdown of the plant.

This was the seventh time that power tripped at the plant this month.

“We supplied 48 million gallons daily (MGD) of water on Friday but we are not sure if the supply will go beyond 40 MGD over the weekend,” said RS Kataria, sub-divisional officer (SDO), Huda.

Hindustan Times has consistently highlighted how frequent outages are affecting normal water supply from the Basai plant, which does not have power back-up. The power requirement at the plant is 5MVA per day plant. It is fed by the Daulatabad and Sector 10A feeders.

“We are forced to depend on water tankers as the supply pressure is very low and even booster pumps failed to help,” said T Satheesan, a DLF resident.

The power fault disrupted morning water supply from the Basai plant to the city’s two boosting stations at Sector 16 and Sector 51.

“The water supply to the two boosting stations could be restored only by 4.30pm. Later, we resumed supply to New Gurgaon areas,” said incharge of the Sector-16 boosting station.

While residents blame Huda for poor water supply, the authority passed the buck to the discom, DHBVN, for frequent power failure.

A resident said, “We wonder why authorities fail to resolve the perennial crisis of water and power shortage. We have to shell out thousands every summer on water tankers.”

“DHBVN officials have not upgraded the system and there are frequent outages,” alleged the Huda SDO.

“There is major fault at the Basai plant which needs to be repaired. I have inspected the plant twice and advised the plant incharge on what they need to do to avoid tripping or power failure,” said Sanjiv Chopra, superintending engineer (SE), DHBVN.