Several parts of Pune lay under thick sheets of water since Thursday afternoon after a portion of the canal of the Khadakwasla dam carrying water to the cultural capital of Maharashtra breached at a place en route inundating at least 250 hutments located in low-laying areas and disrupting water supply to more than a dozen localities that pass along the waterway.
Lakhs of litres of water entered the houses and also went down the drain after a portion of the Khadakwasla canal carrying water to the Pune city breached at one place. The Khadakwasla dam is the main source of water for Pune and its suburbs. Its canal cuts through the length and breadth of Pune.
More than 1,000 alum hutments located in the vicinity of the Dandekar brigde were rendered homeless following the breach. Fortunately, the floods in Pune did not cause harm to people in any part of the city.
The dis-housed people, who have been shifted to safer places, are being provided temporary shelters by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The affected people have been accommodated at make-shift erected by the local Ganesh mandals during the recent festivities. The PMC has directed the affected people to stay put at alternate locations where they have been shifted till the situation returns to normal.
The slum dwellers living in the vicinity of a petrol bunk near Dandekar bridge have borne maximum brunt, with structures of around 120 hutments having collapsed and all of them having gone under gone under water. Similarly 30 hutments located in the vicinity of nearby Maruti temple also went under water.
After two hours of the canal breach, the State Irrigation Department – under which the maintenance of the Khadakwasla dam – comes stopped the supply of water from the dam. The TMC and State irrigation department officials came in for a several flak for the alleged laxity that contributed to the canal breach.
Hundreds of social media users to twitter and Facebook to share videos and photographs of the damage caused by the canal breach which saw both slums in the low-lying areas and roads being floods for several hours.
Following increased water availability in its right hand canal, the Khadakwasla dam has been supplying 600 cusecs of water to Pune as against 300 cusecs supplied. Hower, following the breach, the PMC has stopped the water supply to localities, including Mundwa, Hadapsar, Mahammed Wadi, Yerwada. Koregaon Park, Vishrant Wadi, Tingre Nagar and Viman nagar. “We will have impose supply restrictions in water supply in the coming days,” a senior PMC official said.
Earlier in the day, the side walls of the canal made up of mudstones and concrete at the Mutha bank canal washing following the gushing waters from that pieced through the walls. After the breach, the mangled remains of the hutments like rakes and wooden structure were seen floating in the water. One of the women, Shevanta Bode, living in a hutment near Dandekar bridge said that her currency notes worth Rs 1,5 lakh she had borrowed from someone to pay for JEE entrance examination that her daughter was to take were either soaked beyond use or washed away in the floods.