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.

If contractors and plumbers are charging exorbitantly to provide Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB)  water connections to your house or building, you can now directly approach the BWSSB, pay necessary charges  and get the connection for just Rs 1,470.

BWSSB’s Engineer-in-Chief T Venkatraju said, “People are repeatedly complaining to us about plumbers charging exorbitantly on the pretext of paying bribes to the BWSSB officials. To eliminate middlemen  and ensure that water connection process is made easy, we have decided to provide water connections on our own at a nominal cost. People who want to avail themselves of the services should pay Rs 1,470 by way of cheque to the Executive Engineer of the respective area after paying the necessary charges and obtaining permissions.”

Venkatraju said the Executive Engineer of each sub-division has been directed to entrust the work to plumbers or contractors, who would be engaged by the BWSSB. Those willing to take water connections on their own can take the connections through licensed plumbers or contractors after obtaining the necessary permissions.

Apart from paying the prorata charges in accordance with the property dimension and location, the property owners have to pay Rs 2,155 towards deposit, meter cost, inspection charges and attachment fee before approaching the BWSSB for a water connection.

Sudden Demand

Venkatraju said more people were seeking water connections since the onset of summer. Most of the demands have come from the newly-added areas of the city. Around 38,000 building owners have applied for water connections in East-3 Sub-division alone and BWSSB engineers have issued clearances to provide water connections to 10,200 buildings.

“To clear the applications at the earliest, we have directed all the Assistant Executive Engineers to inspect at least 30 properties a day and give clearances for new connections. It is difficult to give more than 100 clearances in a day, as there are three teams in the zone. Yet, we are sure that we will clear all the files at the earliest”, Venkatraju added.