The state irrigation department has begun supplying water to the treatment plants of Durgapur Municipal Corporation and public health engineering department from Durgapur Barrage after the water table at the upper catchment area of Damodar river reached 210 feet on Friday evening.

Gate no. 31 of the barrage got twisted on Saturday morning resulting in water to gush out to the lower catchment area leading to severe water supply crisis and disruption in power generation.

With the water reaching the desired height on Friday, the civic bodies in Durgapur and Bankura and the PHE department expect to start supplying water to households and factories from Saturday morning after treating raw water at the plants.

“We are now loading the water at our plants for purification and will resume supplies from Saturday morning,” said Pabitra Chatterjee, mayoral council member (water supply) at Durgapur Municipal Corporation.

He said the civic authority would continue to supply more water to the people from its usual frequency for the next few days.

The PHE officials that supply water to Bankura also said the same.

However, irrigation officials said the service could have been resumed earlier in the day but they noticed water seeping through gaps at the bottom of the damaged iron gate repaired on Thursday.

“We have placed a floating gate in front of the repaired gate to stop the seepage. The outflow is completely stopped now and we have started sending water to the power plants, civic bodies and PHE department for supplying to the households and industries,” said Sanjay Singh, executive engineer, Damodar circle of the irrigation department.

The repair work of the damaged sluice gate no. 31 was over on Thursday evening six days.