Water supply was disrupted in various parts of the city on Friday after the Kerala Water Authority began interconnection work of the pipes in the Kathrikadavu route.

West Kochi, Maradu, Kumbalam, Mulavukadu, Vaduthala, Pachalam, Kumbalangi were the affected areas. Kerala Water Authority executive engineer Varghese Samuel said a KSEB feeder line near Aluva pump house was short-circuited earlier in the day.

“Because of the works being carried out on the pipeline, pumping from Aluva became a major issue. In many households, water supply was disrupted from 1.30 pm. We are trying to pump water through an extra feeder line and supply it to people as soon as possible,” Kerala Water Authority officials said.

“But the Kerala Water Authority had not stopped pumping water due to the inter-connection work. We had no intention to stop the pumping for the work, but for two or three hours. However, the disruption of the feeder line became an issue,” the officials said.

They assured that once the feeder line is fixed, water supply would be restored in all the areas.

Meanwhile, Kerala State Electricity Board officials at Aluva said steps were being taken to restore the connection immediately.

This comes in the wake of the board’s finances having plummeted to a record low, and its revenues being insufficient to meet its expenditure.

The board incurred heavy losses due to hike in power tariff, but the previous government turned down all proposals to revise the water tariff, though BWSSB is authorised to hike tariffs.

The tariff was last revised in February 2005. Since then, BWSSB’s expenditure on power has increased by 46 per cent and the cost of establishment has increased by 144 per cent. Also, the interest paid by the board on loans has increased by more than 400 per cent, an official point out.

Current Tariff Inadequate

According to sources, the current tariff is inadequate to compensate the cost of water supply to consumers. BWSSB had a deficit of Rs 1.66 crore when the tariff was last revised. Since then, the deficit has increased every year.

BWSSB’s deficit in 2010-11 stood at Rs 165.18 crore and came down to Rs 148.8 crore in 2011-12. BWSSB lost `239.4 crore between 2008-09 and 2011-12 just by not hiking the water tariff proportionately with power tariff hikes.

Despite severe financial crunch, BWSSB has undertaken various capital works, including developing infrastructure under Cauvery drinking water project to meet the increasing demands for water,  implementation of Cauvery IV Stage II Phase drinking water project, and providing UGD in the newly-added areas, officials said. 

Though the government is funding Cauvery IV Stage II Phase project, BWSSB has to pay the interest on the loan taken to implement the project. Due to the financial-crunch, BWSSB is unable to undertake many works like replacing old and worn-out water lines, they add.