Bandra pumping station failure sinks city

Mumbai's water-logged status on Tuesday night and most of Wednesday was caused not only by unprecedented rainfall but also the failure of the Bandra Reclamation pumping station.

The station which is touted to be the largest sewage discharge facility in Asia could not come to terms with the water overload.

The $40 million pumping plant, that includes a 3.5 metres in diameter and 3.7 km long marine outfall, that should have been working overtime at the Bandra Reclamation pumping station on Tuesday evening, was forced to shut down owing to an overload.

A senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the sewage operations department, however, chose to pass the buck to the power supply failure which he said led to the pumping station being forced to cease operations.

The highest capacity sewage water discharge facility of the BMC, that can discharge 796.80 million cubic litres of water, was forced to shut down when the water levels on the city roads were at their peak.

Confirming this the senior BMC official said: "While the relatively waterlogging free regions of Worli bears testimony of the efficient functioning of the Worli pumping station that has a discharge capacity of 756.90 million cubic litres of sewage water, the collapse of the larger facility at Bandra's pumping station led to the flooding of even the western express highway. The high tide did not help ease the situation either."

The Bandra unit's 11 engineers on their part have been working non-stop since Tuesday to bring the facility back on stream, a feat fully accomplished only by Sunday.

A sub-engineer with the Bandra pumping station, Sashikant Dagde says: "On July 27 the incessant rains resulted in an overflow at the facility. The sewage lines, storm water drains and heaviest ever rainfalls in Mumbai compounded matters as we were unable to flush out the water in pace with the quantity that flowed into our lagoons."

This overflow at the Bandra Reclamation sewage pumping facility led to waterlogging travails for the citizens of Mumbai who found themselves not only stranded but literally having to swim their way out of waterlogged areas even upon the western express highway, that is located on a relatively higher ground.

Another official attached to the Ghatkopar pumping station said: "While our pumping station has a capacity to discharge (into the Thane creek) 386.10 million cubic litres, even we were forced to stop pumping on Tuesday night when the water levels reached never before proportions. There was a risk of short circuits that would result in a loss of lakhs of rupees as well as a threat of endangering public safety."