The Hindu 25.01.2010
Quality of drinking water posing health risk City Ballot Problems
Krishnaprasad
| Many areas depend on water from private tankers |
— Photo: K. Gopinathan 
POOR PLANNING: Traffic jams are common on the road by the cable-stayed bridge near the Krishnarajapuram Railway Station in Bangalore.
Bangalore: “Parched” and “delinked.” These words describe the needs of people living in the nine wards coming under K.R. Puram Assembly Constituency.
For a majority of the population living in the wards — Horamavu, Ramamurthy Nagar, Vijnanapura, K.R, Puram, Basavanapura, Devasandra and A Narayanapura — getting safe drinking water is the main concern.
Many areas (except HAL Airport and parts of Vijnanapura wards) were under the control of the city municipal councils (CMCs) before they were brought under the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike in 2006, and they largely depend on water supplied through private tankers.
Some localities have water supply through pipelines connected to borewells sunk by the then CMCs but the quality of water is posing a risk to the health of residents.
“The pipelines were laid two years ago for supplying Cauvery water after collecting contribution from residents. Now several houses have metered water connection but there is not a single drop of water. We will get Cauvery water only by the end of 2012 as the main connection is yet to be laid under the Cauvery water scheme,” points out N.G. Meganath of Ramamurthy Nagar.
K. Surendran, a resident of A. Narayanapura says consumption of borewell water is posing a health risk as water in all the tanks in the surrounding areas is contaminated, and many tanks are filled with only sewage.
The constituency, which consists of a 58.6-sq km area, has a large number of private layouts, a majority of which are “unauthorised.”
Each of these layouts exist as “islands” with roads and drainage systems not properly connected.
In some old localities such as Udayanagar, the roads are so narrow that no four-wheeler can reach the houses during emergencies. Autorickshaws can barely enter the narrow lanes.
“Easy accessibility can be achieved if the authorities establish a road network by linking the roads of these layouts. The absence of connected roads forces people to walk several miles to use public transport,” says S. Arumugam of Basavanapura.
The cable-stayed bridge built near K.R. Puram Railway Station is now being described as “an example for how not to build a flyover”. Ganesh Murthy of K.R. Puram says the bridge causes traffic jams every day and it has now become an example for “bad planning and bad design” by the authorities.
