A senior MIDC official said: ``We are postponing repairs till the onset of monsoon in light of the uproar.'' He said water would reach the residents by night.

Earlier in the day, however, irate Ulhasnagar residents from UNR-4 stormed UMC commissioner A D Kale's cabin, demanding that he solve the water problem immediately. The commissioner assured corporator Lavina Kundani he would do his best, but it took some time for the mob to be pacified and escorted out of the cabin by security personnel. Morchas were also taken by Kalyan residents to the KDMCheadquarters.

Resigned to going without tap water for the third day today, some residents reacted with despondency, and others with anger, at the water cut. Sadanand Nair (23), a youth from Chikanghar, Kalyan who has spent a better part of the last two days carrying buckets of water to his second-floor flat suggested: ``The KDMC building should be set on fire, so that officals will sit up and think of making arrangements for water at least for dousing the flames.''

Arefabi Hussain, a resident of Santoshi Mata Road said the menfolk in her family had gone to bathe at the railway yard in the last two days. ``We got the idea after we learned from youth in our chawl that for as little as Rs 2 railway staff allowed people to have a bath at the taps meant for washing coaches,'' she informed, adding, ``but that hasn't stopped me from fetching water from the local well as I have to think of myself and my three daughters too.''

UMC commissioner Kale said he had asked MIDC to postpone the repair work ``because Ihave heard the work could take even a month to complete.''

Meanwhile, reports trickling out from MIDC have suggested the problem affecting the reservoir was different from what it was being made out to be. ``The leak is very minor,'' said a senior official. ``The actual problem is corrosion of the roof slab due to chlorine fumes,'' he added. According to him, the slab had to be periodically repaired to nullify the corrosion. ``But we have been putting it off due to pressure from the civic bodies who begin getting jittery even if water supply is affected for a day.''

`BMC should have been prepared'
The Maharashtra State Electricity Board has said it should not be solely held responsible for the 15 per cent water cut in the city, as it had already been agreed with BMC that there would be slight power fluctuation from time to time.

An MSEB spokesperson told Express Newsline: ``In our initial agreement with BMC, it had already been decided that there can be a change in power frequency up tothree per cent (high or low), so BMC should have been well prepared to deal with such situations.''