The Hindu 03.02.2011
Chitradurga CMC bags award for reviving water sources
It won the award at ‘Municipalika', an exhibition held in Bangalore
Recognition: Municipal president Sunita Mallikarjun and other members of the Chitradurga CMC displaying the award during a press conference on Wednesday.
The Chitradurga City Municipal Council (CMC) has bagged the prize for work on reviving ancient water bodies with rainwater harvesting in the recently concluded ‘Municipalika', an exhibition on urban infrastructure, held in Bangalore.
“We have got the prize for maintaining ancient water sources, mainly ‘hondas' (storage tanks), which were built here during the Palegar era,” said Municipal Commissioner Vijay Kumar.
Disclosing details to presspersons here on Wednesday, he said that the award comprised a citation and a cheque for Rs. 3 lakh.
He said that the CMC had been reviving the hondas since 2004, when it undertook a mammoth task of reviving water sources that had remained unclean for centuries.
The officials said that the city had around 179 borewells, and the revival of the hondas had increased the water-level in these borewells.
Mr. Kumar said that other places such as Udupi and Belgaum had also got prizes in various categories.
“It is not just the responsibility of officials or elected representatives to keep the city clean. People too have a great responsibility to ensure that they cooperate with the civic bodies in the task. Without public cooperation, the job is very tough,” he stated.
Replying to queries, he said that the CMC would shortly invite tenders to install meters for each water connection for effective use of water and to increase tax collection.
The installation of meters has been taken up under the Karnataka Municipal Reforms Programme (KMRP), he said.
He said Chitradurga city had around 14,000 legal connections at present. In the first phase, some 10,000 connections would be fitted with meters. He made it clear that the cost of the meters would be recovered from consumers on pro-rata basis.
He also said that a Rs. 29 lakh-project had been prepared under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) to install an express feeder system to provide uninterrupted water to the city.
Municipal president Sunita Mallikarjun, who was present, said that the CMC had decided to cut off all public water connections in order to encourage the fixing of meters for individual connections.
