The Pune Police have booked a borewell contractor and a homeowner after an unauthorised drilling activity allegedly created a hole in an underground metro tunnel on the Shivajinagar-Swargate route. The incident took place at a residential property in Shukrawar Peth, where a six-inch breach was reportedly caused during the drilling process.
According to officials of the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (Maha Metro), the incident occurred on March 14 near house number 415 on Shivaji Road, opposite the Khadak Police Station. Investigators suspect that the borewell punctured the metro tunnel running beneath the area which forms part of Pune's underground mass transit network built through the Pune Metro Rail Project.
Public advisories ignored despite warning
The complaint, lodged by Santanu Gauratra, joint general manager (civil) of the Pune Metro project, states that the Shivajinagar-Swargate stretch consists of twin tunnels, each 6.4 metres in diameter and situated 60 to 100 feet below ground level. The tunnels are supported by cement concrete rings designed to maintain structural stability.
Authorities said that despite repeated advisories restricting excavation and borewell work in metro-sensitive zones, the property owner allegedly proceeded without seeking clearance or checking underground infrastructure. A team initially inspected the tunnel from inside but could not find the source of the breach. A surface inspection later revealed that an old wada structure had been demolished and a borewell drilled at that location.
Leakage alert led to detection of tunnel breach
The issue came to light when tunnel operator Bhushan Pradeep Baringe reported abnormal water seepage between Swargate and Mandai stations to the operations control room. As per the information, the leakage was traced to tunnel line number 15/56 and ring number 471. Metro officials estimated the damage at approximately Rs 2.5 lakh. The seepage was contained by March 17, they added.
Similar incident reported earlier in Mumbai
It is worth noting that this was the second such incident reported in Maharashtra within a month. In an earlier case, an unauthorised borewell drilled by a private water supplier in south Mumbai caused a minor breach in the Aqua Line tunnel -- the city's only underground Metro corridor. The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) subsequently filed a police complaint against the supplier for damaging a section of the Metro Line 3 tunnel during the illegal drilling activity near the Metro Cinema.
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