Hardly 15 kilometre from Vidhana Soudha, people still walk more than a kilometre to buy drinking water at Rs 2 per pot as the BWSSB is not supplying water.

Parts of Laggere, Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Shambhavinagar, Narasimhaswamy Layout and surrounding areas, which were newly added to the city, are still facing acute water shortage.

The groundwater in these areas is highly contaminated forcing the residents to walk more than a kilometre to fetch drinking water.

They also pay Rs 2 for every pot of water which they buy from the houses that receive the water supplied by the BWSSB.

Women in these areas spend most of their time in either fetching water or waiting for a chance to collect water from the nearest public tap. When Express team visited these areas at 11.30 am on Thursday, even children were seen carrying water in bottles on their cycles.  K Hema, a housewife, in  Shambhavinagar, said, “Normally, water is supplied through public taps twice a week. But we have not received water for the past 10 days. We either buy water from the areas that have water supply or drink tanker water. People of four or five households come together and buy one tanker of water. People say tanker water is not fit for consumption, but we don’t have a choice.”

Manjula of Bhyraveshwaranagar said, “Though my daughter is writing the exams, she has to come with me to fetch water. If not, my other chores would be affected,” she added.