Accusing finger pointed towards agency who undertook project
the goan I network
MARGAO
Water supply to Comba and parts of the commercial capital was finally restored after a day and half operation on Thursday, but the episode brought to the fore the same old question “ why the city has no detailed mapping of the underground public utility lines till date.
As labourers dug up the trench to repair the three-decade old ruptured water pipeline, this question was uppermost in the minds of citizens and officials alike, who were all frank in emphasising the need to carry out mapping of the city’s underground lines.
A senior power official conceded that the city would have been hit by a disaster if the water pipeline had ruptured just under the existing power transformer station. No one was ready to shoulder the responsibility for installing the transformer station above an underground water pipeline, but pointed accusing fingers at the agency which executed work on the city’s underground power project.
Inquiries by The Goan has revealed that while the underground asbestos concrete 150 mm dia water pipeline may be more than three-decades old, the power transformer station was erected above the line around half a decade ago when Margao city was covered under the underground cabling project.
A senior BSNL official informed that the telephone cables crisscrossing just above the damaged pipeline were laid just before the CHOGM summit Goa hosted, adding that the telephone cables once connected the telephone exchange located at the Post office. “There’s a need for a mapping of the underground lines in the city. We have a provision of ducts wherever new roads have been built, but there’s no provision whatsoever in the old city,” remarked BSNL Assistant Engineer Datta Lolienkar.
Officials pointed out that the government should engage an agency to carry out mapping of the underground lines if the government departments have cold shouldered the proposal in the past.
City BJP leader, Sharmad Raiturcar wondered how the Power department and the contractor engaged to lay the underground power cabling could erect the power transformer station above the PWD underground line.
“Wednesday night’s incident is a lesson for the government departments to avoid haphazard laying of underground cables. If the water pipeline had to rupture under the power transformer, there would have been a disaster,” Raiturcar said.
No one is ready to shoulder the responsibility for installing the transformer station above an underground water pipeline, but point accusing fingers at the agency which executed work on the underground power project
While the underground asbestos concrete 150 mm dia water pipeline is around three-decades old, the power transformer station was erected above the line around half a decade ago when Margao city was covered under the underground cabling project
BSNL officials claim that the telephone cables crisscrossing just above the damaged pipeline were laid just before the CHOGM summit Goa hosted, and that the telephone cables once connected the telephone exchange located at the Post office
