Kolkata: The city had to deal with over 50 million gallons of potable water deficit every day since the leak in the water main under Tala Bridge on Monday. Kolkata Municipal Corporation officials said they hoped to restore normal supply by Thursday evening or Friday morning. The railways, too, said that trains will run on their normal routes from Thursday.KMC officials said over 400 tankers had to be deployed to various affected areas on Wednesday as the water scarcity deepened with many household reservoirs drying up and SOS calls for water reached the civic body. On Tuesday, KMC had to send 254 tankers to impacted areas, of which 150 tankers were deployed in central Kolkata. Sources said most of the tankers are of 4,000 litres capacity. These included 119 services to domestic households, 109 to slums and 26 to hospitals.“We are working around the clock to restore the water supply to normal levels by Thursday evening or Friday morning. The damaged pipe is of 1,800mm diameter. The volume of water it supplied will now be diverted via a 1,200mm pipeline,” said an official. “We have completed nearly 80% of the diversion work,” said a KMC official. “We have to increase the pressure of water supply to ensure that the same volume of water passes through a narrower pipe,“ he added.Explaining why more tankers were required on Wednesday, a KMC official said that many household still had accumulated water in their reservoirs on Tuesday. As supply reduced or was completely cut off on Tuesday, the reservoirs dried up by Wednesday. “Besides, because of bhaiphonta on Wednesday, the demand for water went up,” said an official.Circular Railway and suburban services using the circular railway route will not be diverted from Wednesday and all trains will take their normal route. “All Mail/Express and suburban train services will operate on their normal routes. Sealdah Division has also made alternative arrangements to prevent water from entering the railway tracks and has developed an additional drainage system to minimise the possibility of such waterlogging in the future,” a railway official said.Social media was flooded with posts by residents who suffered from acute water crisis. Many of them spoke about the difficulties of spending a festival day with very little water.
