Durgapur:
The repair work of a damaged lock gate of the Durgapur barrage will commence once the river bed area around it is dried, which is expected by evening, a senior official said on Sunday. According to District Magistrate of Paschim Bardhaman, Purnendu Maji, engineers are doing the needful to divert the Damodar river water from the area near the damaged gate number 31, to enable the repair work.
“Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is constantly monitoring the situation,” Maji said. “I visited the barrage around 12.30 pm today, and I was told that the water near the damaged gate will recede by evening. We are trying to fix the problem as soon as possible,” the Mayor of Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC), Dilip Kumar Agasty, said.
Once repair work commences, it will take 48 hours to complete, an irrigation official said. The DM also assured that the state government was taking all possible steps to avert any possible water crisis in the area.
The Durgapur Municipal Corporation and Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) will help maintain water supply till Sunday evening, sources said. Till Saturday, the water storage was 8,000-acre feet in the barrage, the irrigation official said.
Meanwhile, locals claimed that water supply had stopped in the Durgapur Power Ltd colony, where around 3,000 families reside. Agasty assured that DMC will use water tankers on Monday if required.
Later, the state government, in a notification, said around 1.25 lakh water pouches have been supplied to Paschim Bardhaman district, and another 50,000 pouches are available. Four Mobile Treatment units (MTUs) have been placed in the district with a capacity to produce 20,000 pouches per hour, it said.
“The situation is being monitored continuously at the state as well as the district level, and as of now there is no shortage of drinking water,” the notification said. On Saturday, the lock gate number 31 of Durgapur barrage suffered heavy damages and became nonfunctional.
