Mumbai: Water shortage hits citizens hard as they queue up for water tankers
Earlier on Wednesday, the BMC observed a crack in the 1650-mm diameter pipeline along Dr. E Moses road in G/South ward.
On Saturday afternoon, citizens in pockets like Kamathipura lined up to fill water through water tankers supplied by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). (Express Photo) For three days, a sudden pipe-burst near Worli’s Famous studios left water taps across parts of Byculla, Worli, Mumbai Central, and Grant Road completely dry. On Saturday morning, as civic water supply continued to elude pockets of South Mumbai, several residents took their frustration to the streets, nudging the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to supply water through tankers. On Saturday afternoon, citizens in pockets like Kamathipura lined up to fill water through water tankers supplied by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Surekha Ankam, a resident of Building 37 in Kamathipura’s 14th lane, told The Indian Express, “We have not received tap water since Thursday. When we were finally provided with BMC tankers, we took pots, buckets and utensils to stand in a queue and fetch water. It took an hour’s wait before we could finally get water.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the BMC observed a crack in the 1650-mm diameter pipeline along Dr. E Moses road in G/South ward. Soon after, the civic body pressed its engineers, labourers and staffers on ground to launch repair works, starting 10 pm on Wednesday. To facilitate the works, the civic body shut the pipeline and announced a day long water cut on Thursday across G/South (Worli, Lower Parel), D (Malabar Hill, Cumbala Hill, Pedder Road, Girgaon and Grant Road) and E (Byculla, Mazgaon) areas.
After a 44-hour long operation, the BMC on Friday announced that the repairs had been executed with water supply set to be restored across the affected wards starting on Saturday.
However, citizens echoed that water supply remained suspended on Saturday morning with some taking their frustrations to the street.
According to Amin Patel, Mumbadevi MLA, the water crisis on Saturday morning was felt across chawls of Mumbai Central, Kamathipura, Dongri, Masjid galli, Kharwa galli, Fitwala chawl, Sankarsheth chawl, Nawab Chawl and 60 tenement areas.
“We had been following up with the BMC administration since Thursday and were told that water supply will be resumed from Friday evening. However, on Saturday morning as well, the BMC water was not supplied to taps, leaving residents frustrated. According to BMC, the water could not be loaded as the pipelines were not entirely charged.
To aid citizens, we then supplied water through BMC tankers,” said Nasima Juneja, corporator from 213 ward.
Surekha, an affected citizen said, “Since Thursday, we have not even received a drop of water so we had to depend on tankers. Even though we paid high rates for tanker water, even that wasn’t proving sufficient. On Friday, despite a tanker, my entire family of six people including two children had to make do with just one bucket of water. This is the worst water crisis I have observed in our area since I moved here in 2010. However, the BMC finally provided tankers and we also received water supply in taps by 1.30 pm.”
By Saturday afternoon, water supply was restored across the affected pockets.
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