Calcutta, Dec. 12 :     The statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the Shyambazar five-point crossing, one of the city?s most prominent landmarks for nearly three decades, will be shifted to repair leaking water mains under its base. The leaks in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation?s half-a-century-old mains under the statue have exposed filtered water to contamination. This was discovered during a recent survey by a German agency. About 160 million gallons of filtered water from the Tallah-Palta network is pumped through the giant 32-inch and 27-inch mains six to eight feet under the statue. The German agency, AWE Ingeniure, detected the leaks during its remote sensing survey. The revelation has taken the civic authorities by surprise. They do not know when the leaks were sprung and for how long the water is being contaminated. ?The German agency has informed us that there are leaks in four big-diameter water mains which pass right under the statue?s base,? an executive engineer (water supply) said. ?If we do not repair the mains quickly, the leaks will increase owing to water pressure and there is the possibility of water-borne diseases like diarrhoea and hepatitis spreading,? a CMC health official said. ?I have asked the chief engineer of water supply to take immediate steps to repair the leaks. We cannot just wait and watch people drinking contaminated water,? said municipal commissioner Asim Barman. The CMC has not yet decided where to place the statue but the Town Hall and the Maidan are possible venues. It is most likely that it will be placed on the Town Hall lawn. The Town Hall is also where a museum on Calcutta is being built and Netaji?s statue would not be out of place there, one official said. AWE Ingeniure carried out the survey in the stretch between the Shyambazar five-point crossing and Galiff Street junction in October last year to demonstrate its expertise to the CMC. ?In the location map of the Shyambazar five-point crossing, they (AWE) have circled the spot where the statue stands today in red....We have to do something about it immediately,? said the chief engineer (water supply) of CMC, Dibyendu Roychowdhury. The CMC has asked AWE to carry out survey and mapping of underground water mains network in the city in wards 101 to 141 in Behala, Garden Reach and Jadavpur. The German experts conducted a ?geo-radar survey? through six US satellites which it had hired. They detected the leaks after interpreting satellite-provided information. AWE had approached the CMC on its own early last year to carry out the survey, after learning about a similar survey being carried out by Seureca of France. AWE has also suggested that German financial institutions be persuaded to provide soft loans for such surveys. The French company has been assigned a similar survey in wards 1 to 100. The civic authorities, who repaired the Shyambazar water mains last in the late 1950s, are worried not only because of the consequences of water contamination but also by the wastage. According to the CMC?s estimate, about 30 million gallons of filtered water are wasted daily due to leaks in underground water mains. AWE Ingeniure of Germany and Seureca of France have offered the CMC financial and technological help to plug the leaks. However, the CMC may find itself on a sticky wicket if it does not discuss the modalities of the proposed shifting of the statue with the government and the Forward Bloc, the party founded by Netaji. ?We will accept the shifting of the statue in the best interest of the people....We cannot take a rigid stand where it is a question of contamination of millions of gallons of water.... We will also discuss the matter within the party and contact the CMC,? said Bhakti Bhushan Mondal, All India Forward Bloc chairman.