Wadi residents take to stealing NMC pipeline water

Nagpur: With city suburb Wadi facing severe water crisis for last five months, residents of the municipal council have started ‘stealing’ water from the pipeline of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). The theft was exposed by a joint flying squad of NMC’s water works department and Orange City Water after they received a complaint of low pressure water supply in Sai Nagar locality in city limits.
Confirming this, a senior official from NMC’s water works department said with water in Vena dam drying up, the water supply in Wadi Municipal Council has been affected badly. TOI had recently highlighted the issue.

The official said the department and OCW’s helpline number received complaints from Sai Nagar residents that since April 6 pressure of water supply to their locality reduced significantly. The locality, which has around 4,000 consumers, shares a boundary with Wadi Municipal Council.

Subsequently, a joint team of OCW-NMC visited the locality, reviewed the residents’ complaint and found that pressure of water supply to Sai Nagar has reduced significantly. The team learnt about illegal tapping of NMC’s water network. The team was shocked when they found that water was being drawn from NMC’s pipeline network by Tekdi Wadi residents in Wadi Municipal Council.

“Though the team tried to disconnect the pipeline, around 300 residents of Tekdi Wadi prevented the action,” said the official. The NMC official informed Wadi Municipal Council chief executive officer Rajesh Bhagat.

Bhagat confirmed having received a complaint about illegal tapping by Wadi residents. “On Tuesday I will visit the spot to cross check NMC’s claim,” Bhagat said.

In another development, NMC also detected illegal drawing of water from Mahendra Nagar elevated storage reservoir in east Nagpur. The incident came to light on Monday when residents of Bastarwari and Satranjipura claimed low pressure water to their areas. During inspection, it came to fore that water is being diverted to Habib Nagar, an unauthorized locality.