New booster pumping station of 4 million gallon capacity to come up at Marcus Square

kolkata: The Water Supply department of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will soon float tender for construction of a new booster pumping station at Marcus Square near College Street in North Kolkata which will replace the existing one at Mohammad Ali Park.

The matter has already been cleared at the monthly meeting of the civic body held last month.

"The new semi-underground reservoir-cum-booster pumping station on turnkey basis with a capacity of 4 million gallon (mgd) will supply drinking water to large parts of Central Kolkata and will entail an investment of Rs 40 crore. It will come up on a vacant plot of land at Marcus Square," a senior official of KMC's Water Supply department said.

The existing pumping station at Mohammad Ali Park which also has the same capacity of 4 mgd had partially collapsed on March 31, 2019 morning and water gushed out, leaving Chittaranjan Avenue flooded for several hours.

Immediate mending was done temporarily to avoid entry of foreign material and contamination in reservoir water.

Experts from the Construction Engineering department of Jadavpur University were roped in for identifying the reason behind the collapse.

The report submitted by the department stated clearly that the underground reservoir with an arch-shaped roof that was built during the British rule to store water was beyond repair.

The recommendations of the JU experts stated that further increment of load in any form (live or dead) is to be restricted as the age-old existing buried structure is already under significant overburdened load (soil). For further safety and to avoid unforeseen failure of the roof structure at least 1 feet existing overburdened soil shall be removed immediately.

The new booster pumping station will help increase the pressure and the flow of water distributed from the Tallah water pumping station to large parts of north and central Kolkata.

For several decades fire tenders used to source water from the Mohammad Ali Park pumping station. In 1998, the KMC had set up a booster pumping station underneath the park.

"We expect to complete the construction work of the new station by three years and then we will stop the existing one at Mohammad Ali Park," the official said.