Hailing Bal Thackeray’s role in the construction of Middle Vaitarna dam in Maharashtra’s Thane district, Shiv Sena legislator Ravindra Waikar demanded that the project be rechristened after the late Sena Supremo.
“The Vaitarna River has three dams. The upper dam was constructed by Maharashtra government and lower one by Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. An engineer named Modak had built the lower dam and thus the dam is known as Modak Sagar,” said Waikar.
The leader said Rs. 3,000 crore were required to build the third dam for he had approached the then Congress-led Central government.
“I and some officials of the MCGM had met Jairam Ramesh and had requested the Centre to provide us Rs. 3,000 crore to build the dam in midst of Vaitarna river. But, we were kept waiting for six months after which we decided to complete the work ourselves,” he said.
“We raised an internal loan through the MCGM and managed to construct the Middle Vaitarna dam. This may not have been possible without the efforts taken by Balasaheb and Uddhav ji,” he added.
Waikar said that Mumbai used to initially receive 2900 MLT water which increased by 450 MLT after the construction of the dam.
“All this has been done due to the hardwork done by Balasaheb to solve the drinking water problem of the city. If Modak Sagar dam can be named after an engineer because of his efforts, why can the middle Vaitarna dam be not named after Balasaheb?” he questioned.
“We have thus we have demanded that the middle Vaitarna dam be called Balasaheb Thackeray Jalashay,” Waikar said.
