Additional City Engineer B S Trapasia told Express Newsline that though the VMC was not changing water supply timings, a cut could be imposed in the days to come, depending on the flow of the Mahisagar.

The city needs an estimated five crore gallons of water every day. Last year, the civic body had cut back on water supply for a week.

Trapasia said though 10 bulldozers had been hired from the Gujarat Land Development Corporation and were being pressed into service for 12 hours, it would be at least a month before the necessary channels and ponds were dug near the french wells.

Incidentally, the VMC has spent lakhs of rupees every year for nearly a decade now in digging ponds and channels to combat the water shortage the city inevitably faces after the monsoons. The channels dug the previous year are washed off in the rains and the entire exercise has to be repeated.

The channels and ponds have to be laid as the french wells at Raika and Dodka are believed to have been installed at the wrong place, from where they cannot draw water if the water level recedes. The channels and ponds help in bringing the flow of water near the wells. He stated that after digging of channels, the city can get water even if the level is 6.50 meter at Poicha. Currently the level is 6.90 meter.

An expert committee instituted in the mid-1990s is probing the alleged financial and technical irregularities in the digging of the wells.

Claiming that more wells in the river had divided the water quantity, Trapasia said currently channels were also being dug near Poicha and Vasad french wells. Wells of public sectors undertakings are also dug in the river.