Khandepar river revival begins as Ganjem supply resumes

PONDA: Rejuvenation of Khandepar river commenced on Sunday night after the water resources department (WRD) commenced supply from Ganjem Scheme.
Since supply from the Ganjem Scheme and Selaulim Dam had halted for nearly one week, the river’s level was continuously dropping.
WRD’s chief engineer Pramod Badami said his officials released water from an old 500mm diameter pipeline that will pour about 35 million litres per day (MLD) of water instead of 70 MLD.
The new bigger pipeline of 900mm diameter that brings 70MLD of water commenced supply on Monday, Badami said.
Owing to the lack of water augmentation from Ganjem Scheme and Selaulim Dam, the Khandepar river dipped to a critical level, and the Opa Water Works had to rely on bandharas for supply.
WRD had been rejuvenating the Khandepar river basin by augmenting water from Ganjem Scheme over River Mhadei and Selaulim Dam, in addition to the bandharas along the Khandepar, Kalay, and Udnhoi rivers.
On Monday, the level settled at 3.05m, executive engineer at Opa water works Nivruti Parsekar said.
Though the Ganjem pipeline was repaired last Wednesday, officials took over two days to release the water.
Shailesh Pokle, an assistant engineer overlooking the Opa plant, said that the department didn’t want to take any risks and hence took a few extra days for curing the concrete block that was erected to support the repaired pipeline, he said.