the goan I network
MAPUSA
Water woes fail to subside in Mapusa. Taps in Mapusa went dry on Monday evening after the Water Resources Department (WRD) suddenly stopped water supply from Amthane dam to Assonora water treatment plant.
City residents are also expected not to get pipeline water supply on Tuesday morning.
WRD shut water supply to the treatment plant for four hours from 12 noon, leaving engineers at the treatment plant in a tizzy on Monday afternoon.
Sources informed that WRD officials fear continuous release of water from the dam may lead to depletion of water in the dam.
Normally, Assonora water treatment plant receives water from the Tillari canal but since the turbidity of the water was too high this year the treatment plant was borrowing water from the Amthane dam.
“The turbidity of Tillari water continues to be high. The water is reddish in colour and the filtration process at the plant will not be able to bring down the turbidity,” a PWD official in the know said.
PWD officials went into panic mode after WRD cut off water supply from the Amthane dam without any intimation.
Senior PWD officers got in touch with WRD officials concerned and after almost a four-hour discussion and on the intervention of WRD Minister Filipe Neri Rodrigues, 50% of the normal quantity of water supply was released to the treatment plant later in the evening.
Meanwhile, with not enough water to treat, the process of filtration at the Assonora treatment plant came to a standstill.
WRD Executive Engineer Arun Naik admitted that his department stopped supply to the treatment plant since water level in the dam had gone down by more than 50 percent.
He said for over two months, water from the Amthane Dam was being supplied to the treatment plant since they were not using the Tillari canal water due to high turbidity.
“The water level in the Amthane dam has gone down to three-and-half meters. We have to keep the water for emergency. If they suddenly stop water supply from Tillari canal then there will be problem for everyone,” Naik said.
He said water from Sal River was pumped into the Amthane dam but this could not be done for the last couple of months due to certain power issues.
He further said once the power problem was resolved and he could pump water from Sal River then there won’t be a problem releasing water to the Assonora plant.
“We were releasing 100 mld of water to the Assonora plant. On the instructions of the WRD Minister, we have released 50 mld of water to the plant in the evening,” Naik said.
