Stored water saves the day

Several parts of south and central Mumbai learnt a precious lesson on Tuesday that ‘water saved is water earned’. With no supply on Tuesday, buckets, drums, and overhead storage tanks that were stored with water filled overnight came to the rescue. Some residents even bought extra drums and all managed to overcome the first day of the water cut, imposed by the civic authorities to connect newly laid pipelines.

LD Khot, 83, a resident of Jilani Manzil on SB Bole Road that did receive any water on Tuesday, said they had no problem as they had stored water. “I don’t think there should be any problem tomorrow either. Even if there is, in chawls, people share and help out,” he said. During regular supply, his house gets water from 4.30 pm to 7 pm.

Shopkeepers who could not store water borrowed some from the neighbouring flats. “We had not saved water so we got a five-litre Bisleri filled from the residents,” said Sandeep Vansh of Sandeep Wines.

Families used drums to store water. “We bought two drums of 200 litres each. Hopefully there should be no problem,” said Patrick Francis, a resident of Gokhale Road. His family has seven members.

There is some concern about the water supply not being restored on Wednesday. Rajesh Patil, whose family of eight members reside on SB Bole Road, was worried that his stored water will last only for two days. “The civic authorities should either have made provisions of supplying us water through water tanker or have water cuts on alternate days,” he said. His building members say they are preparing to buy water from a tanker on Wednesday.

In Mahim too, where the water cut was total, residents said they did not have much of a problem. “Sending out SMSes to store water really helped and we did not get any complaints,” said Anwar Khan, a member of the Mahim Dargah advanced locality management (ALM).

The water supply to certain parts of south and central Mumbai, which were cut on Tuesday, will be restored by Wednesday evening for a day. There will be another round of water cuts in some parts of central Mumbai over the next few days. Water will be available on Thursday. The work on Tansa west main water line will start on Friday, which will necessitate water cuts for the next two days.

Your date with water

List of areas and the dates they will get water

Wednesday evening: Bhavanishankar Road, Portuguese Church Gokhale Road, Kakasaheb Gadgil Marg,  SK Bole Road, New Prabhadevi Road, Appasaheb Marathe Marg, Mahim, Matunga, Pochkhanwala Road, RJ Thadani Marg, Khan Abdul Gafar Khan Road, BDD Chawl, Worli Colony, Adarsh Nagar (Worli), Delisle Road, NM Joshi Marg, Sane Guruji Marg

Thursday morning: Belasis Road, Tardeo, Gaondevi, Girgaon, Nana Chowk, Dongri, Byculla, Mazgaon, Nagpada, Bombay Central, Mahalaxmi, Tardeo