Months on, PMC yet to plug Ramtekdi water leak

The spillage of water from leaky pipes of a civic water tanker filling station at Ramtekdi Industrial Estate in Hadapsar has now inundated roads in the area.
When TOI had first reported the problem in September, PMC officials had promised to investigate the leaks. However, nothing was done to plug the spill.
Recently, desperate citizens built a bund to control the flow of water.But that has failed too.
Much of the leak is because of weak valves that cannot be used anymore to completely turn off the highpressure supply coming from storage tanks atop Ramtekdi hill and going into the trucks.
An owner of one of the industrial units in the estate said the situation has been the same for about two years now. “Water has been continuously flowing out of the filling station’s pipelines. This is drinking water being wasted and something has to be done as soon as possible. A small river has now formed in the area. It’s troubling to see that taxpayer money is not being used to save such a precious resource as drinking water,” she said.
The bund built by members of the Ramtekdi Industrial Estate Association was able to keep water from flowing onto the road for about 10 days. “But it soon gave way. So for the past two days, we have been struggling to contain the leaks. The situation is back to what it was,” said the owner of the industrial unit who didn’t want to be named.
She added that she made several visits to the PMC’s office to find a resolution to the problem.
“But no one there ever gave me a proper reply. I visited the office quite a few times,” she said.
A senior member of the Ramtekdi Industrial Estate Association said with no help coming from the PMC, they have no choice but continue with their own efforts to control the flow of water.
“We had built a small cement bund near the site. This helped improve the situation to some extent as it was set up to channel water away from the roads. But due to constant vehicular movement along roads here, and particularly due to the water tankers, the bund collapsed. It provided temporary relief for about 10 days; that was it,” he said.
The member added that the association was now mulling the installation of a pipeline.
“This will channel the water flow too. We contacted the PMC several times to report the wastage of water at the site, but officials have done absolutely nothing to plug the leaks. This is water that could’ve been used by thousands of people.” When TOI contacted an official from the PMC’s water supply department, he said the problem could be resolved by next week.
“We have completed work on a few of the pipe there. Unfortunately the spillage is happening because there is no stormwater drainage system in the entire industrial area,” he said.
The official added that there were no plans as of now to lay any drains, but said existing ones would be fixed soon.
“We will try and fix the pipelines. We hope that the situation will be better by next week,” he said.
Around 350 tankers fill up at the Ramtekdi water station every day. The trucks supply neighbourhoods in Kondhwa, Hadapsar, Keshavnagar and other nearby areas where many housing societies continue to rely on tankers for their daily supply of water.