Residents queue up for water outside a temple in Sector 41, Chandigarh, on Sunday. (Express)Even as the Municipal Corporation had claimed that the water supply would remain at low pressure on Sunday due to repair at Kajauli waterworks, residents faced an acute shortage of water and complained there was no supply at all.
After queries by residents, the officials said that the pipeline had developed a technical snag and it would take a lot of time to repair the same, maybe more than two days.
Swadesh Talwar, president of Residents Welfare Association of Sector 44-B, Chandigarh, said, “I have been told by JE that after filters were choked, now pumping motors have burnt out. The pipe of 36 diameter will take a huge time to repair. So there won’t be any supply.”
The Municipal Corporation had issued an alert on Saturday specifying that due to a fault in the pumping machinery of phase I and II pipelines at Kajauli waterworks, the drinking water supply will be at low pressure for two days, starting Sunday. But the residents woke up to no supply at all in most of the areas.
This is not the first time that a technical fault has cropped up in the pipelines of the Kajauli waterworks. Alleging ill-maintenance at the end of the Punjab government, the Municipal Corporation had even suggested that they should take over the maintenance from the Punjab government as these pipelines are maintained by them.
In 2016, the then mayor Arun Sood had taken up the issue with the UT Administrator but nothing happened after that. Several breakdowns have taken place. Officials managing the Kajauli waterworks had said that the machinery is worn out now as it is years’ old and due to leakages, major faults happen, leading to a complete breakdown in the water supply.
Earlier, officials said that a technical snag had cropped up in first two phases of Kajauli but on Sunday evening they stated that the snag had cropped up in all four phases, which is why there was no supply in Chandigarh at all.
As the crisis will persist on Monday as well, 50 additional water tankers have been hired by the Municipal Corporation.
