Jalpaiguri, Sept. 15 -- Jalpaiguri Municipality has restored AMRUT water supply to around 10,000 households after repairing one of the two damaged pipelines at Balapara, with work on the second pipeline expected to be completed by Tuesday night. Water supply to the remaining 4,000 households is likely to be restored from Wednesday.
The two pipelines developed problems last Thursday, disrupting treated drinking water supply to around 14,000 households in 21 of the municipality's 25 wards. The municipality's Water Supply Department, in coordination with the Municipal Engineering Department, began repair work and managed to restore one of the pipelines on Monday.
Subrata Bagchi, an engineer with the municipality's Water Supply Department, said: "As a joint initiative of the Water Supply Department and the Municipal Engineering Department, one of the pipelines was repaired on Monday and water supply was restored to 10,000 households from Tuesday. However, repair work on the second pipeline is still underway and is expected to continue until Tuesday night. Once the work is completed, it will be possible to restore AMRUT water supply to the remaining 4,000 households."
Under the AMRUT project, water is drawn from the Teesta River and stored in an aquifer before being sent to the treatment plant at Balapara. After treatment, it is pumped through two large iron pipelines to reservoirs across the town and then supplied to around 14,000 households.
The two pipelines at Balapara were laid inside a water body. According to officials, one pipeline developed a leak, while the force of the escaping water caused a joint in the second pipeline to come loose. The damage led to the suspension of AMRUT water supply from Thursday.
Residents Bijay Sarkar of Ward 8 and Santosh Saha of Ward 11 said water supply had started improving. However, they questioned the lack of attention to the disruption.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.