Pune: The Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Council has said the video showing water gushing out from beneath a road in the Sambhajinagar area was part of a planned trial of a new water supply pipeline.A video in this regard had gone viral on social media and prompted criticism over the alleged poor quality of civic works in in Talegaon Dabhade.Meanwhile, civic officials said the trial was carried out on Saturday to trace the endpoint of a pipeline laid around one-and-half years ago. The exercise was conducted in the presence of municipal officials, corporators and the project contractor.The council said the road in the Sambhajinagar area, located in the main market of the town, had been resurfaced last year since the remaining work on the water supply scheme was expected to take time. The authorities had not wanted to leave the stretch dug up for months.“It would not have been appropriate to leave the road excavated for such a long period when we knew the project would take time to complete. The road was restored to avoid inconvenience to commuters. Now that the remaining work has been completed and the new water supply scheme is ready for commissioning, we conducted the trial,” said Girish Dapkekar, chief executive officer of the municipal council.Officials said that while the contractor and civic engineers knew the pipeline had been laid in the area, the exact endpoint was not marked. Water was released through the pipeline to identify the end point.“The pipeline is buried around three feet below the road and thus the water was released under high pressure. It broke through the road surface at the endpoint, resulting in the visuals which were circulated on social media,” a civic official said.Officials said the valve was shut immediately and repair work taken up. The pipeline endpoint has been identified and the sealing work was in progress.“The remaining work is expected to be completed by Tuesday. Water supply through the new pipeline will begin next week. The road restoration work will also be carried out by the concerned contractor,” said Dapkekar.The civic body maintained that reports attributing the incident to poor construction quality or a pipeline failure were misleading, reiterating that the water gushing from beneath the road was part of a planned testing exercise before commissioning the new water supply line.
