Mumbai will face a planned 22-hour water shutdown this week as the municipal administration undertakes major maintenance work on key transmission pipelines feeding large parts of the eastern suburbs and central neighbourhoods. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has confirmed that the interruption will begin at 10am on 14 November and continue until 8am the following day. The operation is part of a broader programme to modernise ageing infrastructure and improve long-term reliability of the city’s water network.
According to officials, the shutdown has been scheduled to allow the replacement of five critical valves on the Tansa and Vihar water mains, which together form a core part of the city’s bulk supply system. The work includes the installation of four butterfly valves and one sluice valve on both old and new trunk mains. Engineers involved in the project note that such upgrades are essential to manage pressures, reduce leakages, and ensure equitable distribution across the network, especially as demand in several high-density zones continues to rise. Neighbourhoods across Ghatkopar, Kurla, Chembur, Wadala, Matunga, Sion and parts of Dadar will experience either complete disruption or sharply reduced flow. In Ghatkopar, the outage will affect the entire Rajawadi stretch as well as residential clusters such as Chittaranjan Nagar, Vidyavihar and several institutional areas. Kurla will see one of the widest impacts, with localities along major internal roads, housing colonies, transit nodes and industrial pockets slated to go without supply for the full duration of the shutdown.
Chembur’s disruption will extend across multiple planned and informal settlements, including Tilak Nagar, Pestom Sagar, Thakkar Bappa Colony, Shastri Nagar and neighbourhoods adjoining the Eastern Express Highway. Areas in Wadala, Matunga and Sion—important for their mix of residential, commercial and transport activity—will also see a temporary halt. Officials from the hydraulic engineering department said the maintenance window has been kept as short as technically feasible, given the complexity of the replacement work and the scale of the pipeline network. Urban infrastructure specialists argue that such pre-planned shutdowns, though inconvenient, are necessary for Mumbai’s transition towards a more resilient and equitable water supply system. They note that infrastructure built several decades ago is now at a stage where phased overhauls are unavoidable. Investments in trunk mains, in particular, support broader sustainability goals by reducing non-revenue water losses, improving operational efficiency and enabling fairer access across diverse communities.
Residents have been advised to store adequate water and use it judiciously during the shutdown period. Civic officials added that local ward teams will monitor vulnerable pockets and respond to any emergent service requests. The maintenance works are expected to contribute to improved reliability ahead of the next distribution cycle, especially as Mumbai continues to strengthen core services to meet future climate and population stresses.
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