Deccan Chronicle 22.05.2013
Water crisis: Monsoon, Bangalore’s only hope
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Bengaluru: If you are the praying type, now is the time to appease the gods. There is enough water in Krishna Raja Sagar to supply the city for about 20 days, thanks to water flowing in from the Hemavathi reservoir. But after that time, Bengaluru’s citizens are at the mercy of the monsoon.
Many residential localities in the city had to make do without water again on Tuesday. When water supply is down to the minimum, borewells have dried up, and private suppliers have shot up prices by over 1000 percent, charging around Rs 800 per load of water, the only hope left for Bengalureans is the monsoon. Team DC reports
The water crisis of the last fortnight in the city worsened recently after the BWSSB shut down around 15 of the 60 pumps at the three pumping stations of TK Halli, Harohalli and Tataguni. And unlike other summers when people of Bengaluru North and East suffered the most, this year all areas including the usually better off South Bengaluru, are having a hard time with the Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) reservoir that Bengaluru depends on for its supply, fast drying up.
The BWSSB, which had promised to supply adequate water in the weeks leading up to summer, has been looking on helplessly as the taps have run dry over the last couple of weeks, leaving people at the mercy of tankers. Those living in areas where Cauvery water is now supplied once in four days as against every alternate day, have no choice but to pay as much as the tankers demand to meet their daily needs .
Says one resident, Mr Krishna Rao, a manager with the SBI, “The water problem has become terrible over the last two weeks. The supply has been either erratic or very poor. Filling the trickle we get from the taps delays all our routine work and affects our punctuality at work too. The BWSSB and the government must do something about the water problem as buying tanker water is burning a deep hole in our pockets.”
The situation is no different in East and North Bengaluru. Mr Narendra Kumar, a mechanical engineer and resident of Ramamurthynagar, says they have not got Cauvery water for the last 10 days.
“We got Cauvery water only during the elections. After that the taps went dry,” he adds
Ask the BWSSB and it claims the water problem will be solved in the next 48 hours as water from the KRS and Hemavathi reservoirs has started to reach Bengaluru. “Already, 57 of the 60 pumps have been commissioned to pump water to Bengaluru. About 850 MLD of water was pumped on Monday as against the requirement of 1,150 MLD. Only three pumps are left idle. The situation will improve in the next couple of days,” says a senior BWSSB official.