Team Herald
PONDA: With Panjimites compelled to depend on tankers for their daily water requirements due to the restricted water supply, the work to restore the damaged pipelines has been progressing on a war footing as authorities expect to release the water supply to Tiswadi taluka and parts of Ponda taluka by Monday.
The work has been going on round-the-clock for three consecutive days. Till Saturday late evening, 24 officials, who are supervising the work, managed to lay the 20 metre-long concrete raft foundation to install eight pipelines four each of 900 mm dia and 750 dia respectively. The concrete raft foundation, which is five metres in width and 2.5 metres height, is necessary to install a minor truss bridge on which pipelines would be laid at a height of 3.5 metres. The officials expect the work of laying the concrete foundation to be ready by Saturday late night.
The officials informed that the work to lay the pipelines on the minor truss bridge would commence on Sunday evening.
It is learnt that the cast iron and ductile iron pipelines of 5.5-metre long each, which were damaged, would now be replaced by MS steel pipelines.
It is pertinent to note that beside heavy machinery and concrete mixers, there are around 60 labourers working round-the-clock at the spot. Around eight welders have been arranged to carry out further work and the team of officials of road and water supply divisions are coordinating with each other and have been performing their duties on a rotation basis to ensure that the restoration work continues.
