Veravali pipeline leak: BMC and MMRDA continue to bicker over info on utilities

A day after the leakage in the Veravali reservoir pipeline, which had been damaged owing to Metro work, was repaired and water supply resumed on Sunday, the Brihanmumbai

A day after the leakage in the Veravali reservoir pipeline, which had been damaged owing to Metro work, was repaired and water supply resumed on Sunday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) continued to bicker over information on the placement of utilities in the area.

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While MMRDA had last week claimed they were given inaccurate markings for underground utilities, BMC on Monday clarified that the map of utilities was correct.

This is not the first such incident; in the past, too, there have been several instances wherein Metro authorities have damaged water pipelines in the westerns suburbs while working on the Metro-2A corridor on Linking Road and blamed BMC for providing faulty information.

On January 29, a leak in the Veravali reservoir water pipeline, near Mahakali caves in Andheri (East), was reported, leaving several parts of the city between Bandra and Jogeshwari, and Kurla and Ghatkopar without water for the three days. While the water supply resumed on Sunday, several residents complained of low pressure on Monday.

BMC on Monday took to Twitter saying: “The map on utilities was correct…Roads over a period of time have widened and relative reference of the road to pipeline could not be calculated correctly by Metro contractor.”

An MMRDA official on Monday said the agencies will coordinate from now on.

“We just followed what we were given by the BMC, but also we do not want to escalate the issue anymore. We will now coordinate to avoiding such incidents in future.”

MMRDA had, last week, in a statement said, “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 BMC had inaccurately marked it on the other side of the alignment, which unfortunately led to damaging the pipeline.”

BMC is also investigating whether the fault was MMRDA’s or Metro contractors. In case of any wrongdoing, BMC claimed it will take action by levying a penalty.

Meanwhile, residents claimed that although normal water supply started from Sunday evening, the water pressure is low.

Abhishek Marwah, an Andheri resident, said, “We started getting water since Sunday late evening, but the pressure is very low, and it is taking time for our society’s tank to be filled. Also, no matter whose fault it is, we are only interested in getting uninterrupted water supply for which the agencies should have proper coordination.”