PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) restarted the pending work for Bhama-Askhed water supply project on Friday. The project was stalled after protesters threatened to drown themselves in the dam water. The PMC is building a 42 km pipeline to carry water from the dam to the eastern parts of the city.  

This is the second time that Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has taken help of the police to restart project work. 

The State Reserve Police (SRP) is giving protection to the Pune Municipal Corporation-appointed contractor.  

PMC Superintendent Engineer of water supply department, Pravin Gedam said, “Project-affected villagers had stopped the work in July 2018, demanding compensation in the form of land instead of cash. Hence, we demanded police protection to restart the project work. On Friday, the police provided protection to the contractor to restart work. This is the second time that we had to seek police protection to resume our work.”

According to the civic body, more than 70 per cent of work is done. The civic body is yet to complete the construction of jackwell. The civic body will require at least eight months to complete this work. The construction of the jackwell is done underwater and the same will help in lifting the water from dam. 

Jackwell is an intake structure used for collecting water from the river, lake and reservoir and carrying it further to the water treatment plant. 

The project will quench the thirst of around 14.50 lakh citizens (estimated in 2014) in the eastern parts of the city, which, at present, is not getting enough and regular drinking water. 

The civic body planned the project in 2014 to bring 2.64 TMC (Thousand Million litre per cubic feet) of water from the dam to the Pune city. The deadline for the project was July 2017, which was extended a couple of times.