GULBARGA: When people in Gulbarga city are facing acute drinking water crisis, five million gallons a day of water being pumped from the Saradgi barrage is going waste.

Drinking water that has to be supplied to the city is being let out into a drain due to the corporation's decision to allow the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board to pump 12 million gallons a day of water from the barrage to the filter bed and insisting that it be pumped through the old pipeline that has only a capacity of about 7.15 million gallons a day of water.

Pumping of water through the new pipeline from the barrage to the filter bed was suspended after rubber packing burst at two points — in the jackwell of the barrage and at a railway crossing on the outskirts of the city — on April 21.

Following protest by residents who were deprived of drinking water for more than 10 days continuously, the district administration directed the water supply board to resume pumping of water through the old pipeline. Sources in the board told The Hindu that work on replacing the rubber packing at the two joints had been completed on April 23, and pumping of 12 million gallons a day of water through the newly laid pipeline was resumed from 6.30 p.m..

Until Wednesday, no leakage had been noticed in the 19.2-km stretch of the pipeline from Saradgi barrage to the Intermediary Pumping Station at Kotnur, they said.

No alternative

About 7.15 million gallons a day of water was being pumped from the Kotnur station to the filter bed through the old pipeline.

Water board authorities have no other alternative but to release the excess five million gallons a day available at the Kotnur station into the drain since Monday evening as the at the pumping station does not have storage facility.

Water board officials are keen on pumping 12 million gallons a day of water through the remaining 7.9-km stretch of the new pipeline from Kotnur to the filter bed immediately.

But at a meeting of the water supply board and the corporation convened by Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey, City Corporation Commissioner S.P. Mudhol said the present arrangement should continue for another three days.

Resuming pumping through the new pipeline would result in disruption of the pumping of water to the filter bed for about four hours, he said.

Water supply board officials told the Deputy Commissioner that pumping of water to the filter bed would be affected for not more than four hours during the switch over.

The corporation officials said that any disruption in pumping of water to the filter bed would disrupt drinking water supply to the city.

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