The shut down is likely to evoke strong opposition following the severe
water crisis prevailing in the city, especially in the East and North
Nagpur which is set to be affected from shut down. Many corporators are
also seeing something fishy over the earlier decision to cancel the
planned shut down in West and South-West Nagpur.

The shut down has been planned on April 27 and 28. Continuing to ignore mayor Anil Sole’s directives, the OCWL
did not provide water to affected areas through tankers or any other
alternative sources. Supply to the 15 overhead water tanks, which
releases water to East and North Nagpur, and parts of South Nagpur, will
be stopped.

Interestingly, Sole cancelled the shut down
planned for West and South-West Nagpur on April 16 and 17 citing the
work as ‘non-emergency works’. The mayor had also asked OCWL not to
undertake any more shut downs during the summer months.

Yet,
the NMC and OCWL have gone ahead and planned the shut down for
non-emergency works like installation of flow meters, air valves,
interconnection and repairing of leakages. The NMC water works
department and OCWL have put the blame on the ongoing JNNURM works. OCWL
project manager Sandip Purohit said the shut down was mainly for
connecting two newly constructed overhead water tanks at Nandanwan and
Kharabi.

The NMC Pench project cell executing JNNURM works had
said that works planned by the department were not emergency in nature
and could be postponed.

Meanwhile, a big goof-up of NMC and
Veolia Water has come to fore. NMC sources told TOI that the work to
install zero velocity valves at two places on pipeline supplying water
from Kanhan water treatment plant to overhead water tanks in East and
North Nagpur should have been undertaken by them before it was put to
use. “These valves are very important for preventing from damage to
pipeline after power interruption,” the sources said.

The Kanhan plant and pipeline was brought into use from 2011.

OCWL spokesperson Sachin Dravekar said the shut down for West and
South-West Nagpur will be taken in the coming days. “Shut down is must
to execute developmental works under 24X7 water supply project,” he said.