Now, road work bursts water pipeline at St Cruz junction

PANAJI: After the two major water pipelines in Curti-Ponda, it was the turn of a 400mm pipeline at St Cruz to give way on Thursday, yet again due to the road contractor. The breakdown occurred on the day water supply was restored to Tiswadi after seven days, extending the water crisis of the villagers of St Andre, St Cruz and the Goa Medical College at Bambolim.
Officials said the contractor — MVR Infraprojects — was supposed to shift the water pipelines before taking up work on road widening and construction of the overpass at the St Cruz signal junction.
The ductile iron water pipeline runs approximately 1m under NH66 and supplies treated water to St Cruz and St Andre constituencies. Curca, Siridao, Cacra, Bambolim, Goa Medical College and Alto St Cruz will be left without water till the pipeline is restored and residents will have to rely on water tankers again.
“The pipeline is below the road surface so the reinforced concrete layer has to be broken, excavated and the pipe repaired,” principal chief engineer Uttam Parsekar said. “The pipeline will be repaired as soon as possible.”
Sources said that the pipeline has ruptured at least 12 times before, but PWD has been lax in shifting the pipeline and holding the contractor accountable.
PWD closed the valve that allows water to run through the pipeline.
Local citizens were furious that water supply had once again come to a halt. “Precautions should be taken before any work is taken up. They should have calculated the load of the rubble and mud that has been dumped on the pipeline. We are really frustrated,” said St Cruz MLA Antonio Fernandes.
“Already the contractor has shifted 50% of the waterline and the remaining 50% we will try to shift in 15-20 days,” Parsekar said. “It is the same contractor, MVR.”
Before PWD and the National Highway Authority of India began work to widen the national highway into a four-lane road, the pipeline used to run parallel to the road. However, once MVR Infraprojects took up the work, the pipeline was covered instead of being shifted to the side.
MVR is the contractor tasked with widening of the road at Curdi-Ponda where the embankment gave way due to a landslide taking two major water pipelines with it. PWD minister Deepak Pauskar had told TOI that the contractor was responsible for shifting the water pipelines before beginning the widening work.
A site supervisor of MVR projects at St Cruz, who received an earful from Fernandes, blamed PWD and NHAI for putting pressure on them to hasten the road widening work.
“The chief engineer in charge of the national highways puts pressure to complete the work fast,” said the supervisor.
He said that it would take at least 24 hours to excavate the mud that has been dumped on top of the pipeline. A PWD engineer who was on site said that only after assessing the severity of the damage will they be able to estimate the time that it would take to repair the pipelines.