By Rupesh Samant

Panaji, Aug 18: While assuring that the water supply to Tiswadi and Ponda talukas would be restored by Tuesday afternoon, PWD minister Dipak Pauskar has admitted that the incident of a pipe bust at Curti, Ponda could have been averted.

The minister said that the pipeline was showing the signs of getting cracked, which were ignored by the site engineers of PWD, resulting in this tragedy, which left Tiswadi and Ponda parched for three days now.

He said that the damaged pipe was supposed to be shifted to the other side of the road as a part of Highway construction project, which was not done, leaving the weakened pipe to bust.

Pauskar said that the work on restoring the pipeline and also re-building the collapsed portion of retaining wall is going on, on a war footing. The pipeline would be repaired by Monday evening or Tuesday morning after which it will take maximum three hours for the water from Opa Water works to reach Panaji city.

He said that water is supplied to the people through tankers, though there is shortage of the vehicles in certain parts. “We are trying our maximum to provide tankers to the people,” the minister said.

Pauskar admitted that the pipeline which has busted was supposed to be shifted to the other side of the road as a part of Highway expansion project, but it never happened.

“The pipeline had started showing the cracks which were ignored by the PWD engineers who were assigned the site. It is a negligence,” he said.

Pauskar said that abundant precautions would be taken to ensure that similar situation do not arise in future.