CUTTACK: The pipeline of the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) was again damaged in CDA locality here causing much inconvenience to hundreds of households of Sector-6 and its adjacent areas on Thursday morning.
The underground cooking gas pipeline was cut near Prajapita Brahmakumari Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya at CDA sector-6 during digging of the surface by the WATCO for laying underground drinking water pipelines on Wednesday night.
Though the damage to the pipeline had caused gas leakage, there was no incident of fire reported. Locals out on their morning walk saw the damage and brought it to the notice of the GAIL staff, following which the leak was immediately blocked and necessary repair work started.
However, the GAIL officials claimed that they had restored the supply of gas by 3 pm, but a majority of the residents had to suffer till Thursday 7 pm as their regulators needed resetting by their field staff.
“After waking up when I went to make tea at 5 am in the morning, I found no supply gas to the stove. I had no other potion than to go and buy an electric induction furnace,” said a resident.
“This is not a single such incident that happened for the first time. Earlier, the gas pipe line was damaged twice about 20 days back. We had to suffer a lot when it came to cooking due to frequent damages which apparently are being caused due to lack of proper coordination between WACTO and GAIL,” another resident of the locality alleged General manager, WATCO Cuttack division, Debabrata Mohanty said that the engineers are digging the surface in coordination with the GAIL officials.
“The GAIL staff are not confirming and marking perfectly as a result of which the underground gas pipelines are getting damaged,” said Mohanty. Refuting the allegation, DGM, City Gas Distribution, Cuttack Sudhansu Satapathy alleged that the pipelines are getting repeatedly damaged due to unauthorised digging in the night. “Even if our staff are restraining them not to go for digging till the demarcation, the WATCO continues it,” said Satapathy.