Urban News

The Hindu      26.07.2010

Councillors from new BBMP wards want more borewells

Afshan Yasmeen

Bangalore: Several councillors, especially those representing the newly added wards where residents are mainly dependent on borewell water, are now demanding that the authorities dig more borewells in their areas.

Despite the revival of the monsoon, the demand for water is still high.

The demand has grown after Minister for BWSSB Katta Subramanya Naidu recently stated that digging borewells is the only solution at the moment.

“As per the Minister's directions, we are supposed to drill only four borewells in each ward. Although this activity is yet to be approved by the Government, we have started the drive. As many as 680 borewells have been dug of which 100 have failed because of the depleting groundwater table in some areas,” a top BWSSB official said.

Pointing out that the demand for more borewells was high from wards in K.R. Puram, Byatarayanapura and Dasarahalli, the official said: “The groundwater table in these wards is really bad. We are not getting water even after digging up to 1,000 feet.”

The BWSSB officials are in a fix over the borewell digging drive.

“The exercise is expensive with each ward requiring nearly Rs. 15 lakh for four borewells. This is apart from the maintenance and power charges. We all know that this will not help in solving the city's water problems completely. But we do not have a choice,” the official said.

With the local councillors and MLAs differing on where to dig borewells, officials are having a tough time in finalising the locations.

Thippagondanahalli

Officials are also worried about the depleting water level in the Thippagondanahalli reservoir. “The level has reached an all-time low. It has plummeted to 10 feet as on Thursday as we are able to draw only 12 million litres of water per day from this source. We are managing by ‘making internal adjustments'. But we may have to stop pumping if the level does not increase in the next few days,” another official in charge of the reservoir said.

Allegations

Meanwhile, councillors from the Opposition Congress in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council alleged that a majority of wards represented by Congress councillors were being sidelined by the BWSSB officials.

MLAs blamed

“Except for five-six wards, almost all the wards with Congress councillors have not got even a single borewell so far.

“We cannot blame the officials for this because we know the ruling party MLAs are behind this. I am going to raise this in this month's council meeting,” said M. Nagaraj, Opposition Leader in the council.

The Hindu      26.07.2010

Water contamination is localised: HMWSSB

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The cases of polluted water supply detected in the city are not widespread but localised in nature. “There is absolutely no cause for worry as it is not a general phenomenon,” said Water Board managing director M. Jagadeeshwar.

Reacting to reports in a section of the press, he told presspersons here on Saturday that the percentage of unwholesome samples found since January was only 0.32. During the month of June, the IPM tested about 1934 samples and found 23 to be unwholesome, which was just 1.18 percent. “In the huge network that we have, it is well within the tolerable limits,” Mr. Jagadeeshwar said trying to play down the controversy.

The water contamination was confined only to a few slums and was prevalent at the household level. Pit taps and defective household pipes could be the reason. On its part, the Board was maintaining the parameters of residual chlorine, pH, colour, turbidity conforming to the BIS IS 10500 norms of drinking water. “To say that the entire water is unwholesome is incorrect. We welcome criticism but it should not send out wrong signals,” Mr. Jagadeeshwar told media persons.

He explained in detail the external monitoring done by IPM, IHS and the HMWSSB to ensure water quality.