Water supply to large parts of Howrah was severely affected from Thursday morning till Friday evening after a supply line from the Puddapukur water treatment plant was damaged.
Almost all the 50 wards under the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) were affected. By Friday evening, the supply was restored in central Howrah. But north Howrah was still without water.
Sources in the civic body said they were expecting the supply to be restored from Sunday morning.
The Puddapukur water treatment complex with 90 million gallons a day capacity has four plants. The 1,500mm diameter line that cracked supplied water to Howrah city from two plants.
The line was damaged after a hillock of waste at the Belgachhia waste disposal ground caved in.
“There are many hillocks of waste at the Belgachhia dumping ground. At least one of the hillocks caved in and the water line cracked under the impact,” said Sujay Chakravarty, the chairperson of the board of administrators of the HMC — that does not have an elected board since 2018.
Water tankers were procured from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Uttarpara Municipality, but it was not enough to tide over the crisis.
“We have received 18 water tankers from the KMC and 12 from the Uttarpara-Kotrung Municipality. But they were not enough,” said Chakravarty.
A team of engineers from the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) has been working since Thursday to fix the line and restore the supply.
“We tried to repair it on Thursday night but were unsuccessful. We are now trying to connect another line so that water can be supplied to a large part of Howrah. Supply to all areas can be restored only after two or three days,” said Chakravarty.