Mayor contests report on tank surface cracks

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 26

Though the district administration has denied any visible cracks on 300 square metre surface area of the 107-year-old Ridge storage tank, Shimla Mayor Sanjay Chauhan has contested the report. He was hopeful that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would direct the state government tomorrow to ban big rallies and functions on The Ridge to preserve the sanctity of this stone masonry heritage drinking water tank.

What has raised concerns of residents is that the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) and other government agencies have never done a structural safety audit of the storage tank that supplies 45 lakh litre of water to the residents.

The Mayor cited a report of inspection of the water tank carried by municipal engineers on February 2, 2017. The report, which is with The Tribune, says that during the cleaning, first three chambers have developed cracks and this report has been taken up for further action.

He said the corporation had prepared a plan for safety of the storage tank. “The first thing that we are doing is that The Ridge should be banned for all big events and rallies,” he said. The 17-ft-deep storage tank has 45 lakh litre capacity and has nine chambers and supplies drinking water to half of the city. These chambers are separated by the eight masonry walls measuring a thickness of one metre each and all chambers are connected by holes in each wall that allows flow of water from one chamber to other, reveal municipal engineers.

To avoid any mishap, the surface area of the storage tank has been marked yellow, not allowing any heavy vehicles on the surface area of the heritage tank.

Municipal engineers told The Tribune that they had no design of the British-built tank and no study on structural safety of the tank was carried. “We have developed the drawings of the tank when it was cleaned earlier. But no need of structural safety was ever felt,” they revealed. Deputy Commissioner, Shimla, Rohan Chand Thakur said the IG Police, the SP and Municipal Commissioner carried a joint inspection of the surface of the storage tank yesterday and found no visible cracks and submitted the report to the SPG. “We cannot say that the surface over the storage tank is structurally safe as no safety inspection is done”, he clarified.