Urban News

Besides the auditorium, a Japanese theme garden is being constructed at Panjrapur, around 60 kms from Mumbai. Panjrapur is an important node of the water supply system in the city.

The Japanese theme garden and the museum are being constructed at a cost of Rs 7.41 crore, according to civic offcials.

The theme garden will be turned into a picnic spot, said civic officials.

The garden will have a pagoda and fountains. Both auditorium and garden are expected to be ready in about two months, said deputy hydraulic engineer Nandkumar Patil, Pise-Panjrapur.

The Japanese theme garden will also have an amphitheatre which can be used by schoolchildren.

“We had children in mind while making the garden and the museum, but now we think that there will be others also who might be interested in viewing such models,” said Patil.

The water supply system of the city is vast and old, and we want the public to see and understand how our water system works, said a civic official.

The museum will also display the history of the water department of Mumbai, will have rare photographs and informative slides.

There will be functional models in smaller sizes that will depict the whole process of the water distribution, said a BMC official.

The proposal to dig ring wells was passed by the civic standing committee meeting on Tuesday. The civic body has appointed three contractors to dig new ring wells. As many as 100 ring wells, each measuring not more than 3.5 metres in diameter, will be dug in city, eastern and western suburbs each.

The civic body had allocated Rs 41 crore to construct and clean up ring wells in the 2010-’11 budget.

Corporators in a standing committee meeting in November 2009 had suggested that ring wells were better than borewells. They had said the ring wells would have better life and would not pose the problem of drinking water getting mixed with saline water.

The administration said the contractors wouldn’t be paid if saline water was found in the ring well. Meanwhile, some dissenting voices were heard about the administration paying the contractor a steep 3.69 lakh to dig one well.

Shiv Sena’s Rajul Patel said, “Digging a borewell, which is a complicated process, costs somewhere around Rs 1.25 lakh. How can digging of a ring well cost three times that amount?”

Additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar said, “The contractor should appoint a geologist who can help study and predict if water in the well is good. If contractors dig ring wells without carrying out a proper study, the city’s ground water table will be in danger.”