The budget of the Kochi Corporation for the year 2014 which will be pre¬sented soon after this year’s State Budget is expected to give special focus on devel¬oping feeder system for the Kochi Metro Rail. 

This is the first budget of the Corporation after the commencement of Kochi Metro Rail works and ac¬cording to a top Corporation official, this year’s budget is crucial as there are certain infrastructure projects that need to be completed along with the Metro Rail project.

“The projects like widen¬ing of the South Railway Over Bridge (RoB), widening of Thammanam-Pullepady Road, construction of Atlantis RoB, Goshree-Mamangalam Road and re¬construction of PVS culvert are some of the key proj¬ects that needs to be com¬pleted along with the Kochi Metro Rail.

Meanwhile, the Pachalam RoB is another major project. Hence the Corporation will have to include provisions for these projects in the budget,” the official said. Meanwhile, some of the key proposals mooted in last year’s Corporation bud¬get are yet to be materialised.

The formation of the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) as an umbrella body to regulate the traffic issues of the city, construction of new sewage treatment plants, mini sew¬age plants and anti-mosqui¬to programmes with the sup¬port of the Vector Control Research Institute were some of the key proposals in the last year’s budget. 

The Corporation is also planning to launch road development schemes us¬ing modern technologies, but failed to carry the plan forward. Even the sugges¬tions mooted during the Road Conclave held two years back were not imple¬mented. Another non-start¬er is the upgradation of the existing facilities and the development of the Solid waste Treatment Plant at Brahmapuarm. 

The Corporation had also promised in its annual bud¬get a sewerage treatment plant, which will be set up in West Kochi. Another alloca¬tion for West Kochi was the preparation of Study Report for Edakochi Sustainable Development Project. “The non starters are likely to be included in this year’s budget. the main focus will be on infrastructure development,” the official added.

Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (BWSSB) recent initiative to minimise wastage of water by plugging the leaks in pipelines in Bangalore South division has already started yielding results.

The quantity of water which is unaccounted for has been reduced from 51 to 28 per cent in Vidyanagar, BWSSB’s Chief Engineer Kemparamaiah said.

 He said private contractor Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has finished installing water flow meters and replacing worn-out pipelines in five of the selected 80 areas.

It has also started work on closing leaks and the unaccounted for water-level has come down in all the five areas, he added.

Kemparamaiah said nearly 48 per cent of the water supplied by the public utility agency is usually unaccounted for.

However, it has come down to 26 per cent in Gururaja Layout, 23 in Bhuvaneshwarinagar, 25 in Kalidasa Layout and 32 in Chikkallasandra.

According to the terms of the contract signed in April 2013, the BWSSB will release payments to L&T in proportion with the decrease in the unaccounted for water.

“L&T is confident of bringing (it) down to 16 per cent in Bangalore South by the end of three years,” Kemparamaiah said.

L&T has taken up the work with the help of Japan International Agency at a cost of `153.12 crore.

The company has to examine 147 km of water pipelines and re-lay them wherever necessary.

It is also tasked with tracking the water flow to 1,36,380 water connections in Banagiri, Devagiri, Girinagar, Katriguppe, Banashankari, Hoskerehalli, Kumaraswamy Layout, Poornapragna Layout, BTM Layout, Vijaya Bank Layout, Chamarajpet, MNK Park, Mount Joy, Nagendra Block, J P Nagar and surrounding areas in the city.

To this end, L&T has divided the zone into 80 district meter areas (DMA), based on the water pipelines in the zone and installed water flow meters in each DMA to analyse the pattern of water flow.

Besides wasting millions of litres of water, BWSSB is also incurring losses to the tune of `20 crore every month due to leakage.