Water down the drain as pipelines burst

Thousands of litres of water went waste on Sunday in two incidents of water pipeline damage at Santacruz and Matunga.

Thousands of litres of water went waste on Sunday in two incidents of water pipeline damage at Santacruz and Matunga.

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The civic body blamed the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) skywalk contractor for the damage.

Municipal Commissioner Swadheen Kshatriya knew of the Santacruz pipe burst incident but was unaware of the one at Matunga.

He said, “We will recover the repair cost of the pipe from the MMRDA as this is a serious incident.”

A 4-inch water pipeline was damaged when the contractor for the project, J. Kumar Infrastructure was carrying out work for the skywalk at Santacruz (West).

In another incident, a 36-inch Vihar main pipeline leaked into the piled ditch, where the MMRDA flyover work is on.

“Though this is not confirmed, but possibly the underground pipe was broken during the piling work of the flyover,” a civic official said on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

He said they have nothing to do with the Matunga incident.

Following the burst in Nana Chowk on January 4, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had sent a letter to the MMRDA asking them and their contractors to be careful while carrying out excavation work on roads to avoid damaging underground utilities.

In May last year, the MMRDA had caused damage to water pipelines two times during the construction of the flyover at Lalbaug.

The bills for the repair of these broken pipelines was sent to the MMRDA after the incident.