Summary:
PONDA: Work on the shifting of a major pipeline at Curti, an outskirt of Ponda town, left the Ponda taluka virtually waterless for over two days. Repair works were completed only after 3pm on Sunday.The shifting process affected Ponda town and villages of Usgao, Ganjem, Khandepar , Vaghurme, Curti, Bethora, Nirankal, Wadi-Talaulim, Durbhat-Adpai, Bandora, Kavlem, Borim and Shiroda. After that was fixed, a scour valve of the pipeline developed a problem, prompting officials to stop water yet again. Although the public work department’s water division had announced that supply to the affected areas would resume by Saturday evening, those affected received water only on Sunday evening. Even then, supply had to halted twice to tend to some newly developed faults.The 750mm cast iron (CI) pipeline that supplies drinking water to the Ponda taluka had been earlier laid under the main road at Curti, between the Shree Sateri temple and Devache zaad (divine tree) area, leading to its repeated damage during ongoing road widening work.“Thus, the road contractor, MVR Infraprojects, had begun shifting around a kilometre of the pipeline to the side of the road on Friday morning,” Nivruti Parsekar, executive engineer of the water division, said, adding that part of the pipeline was also changed from old CI to new ductile iron (DI) with joints of mild steel on either side.Although the process of shifting the pipeline and fixing its joints was completed by Saturday night itself, leakage through the rubber packing of one of the joints led the PWD to immediately halt water supply..