City stinks as BWSSB misses deadline

City stinks as BWSSB misses deadline
For the delay, the rains have been quoted as the main reason besides frequent road cutting problems and delay with regard to land acquisition.
Deccan Herald


The civic agencies are good at missing deadlines to complete the projects. This time it is the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) which has missed the deadline. Fortunately, it has not resulted in financial loss. But if the authorities had completed the scheduled work, then it would have surely improved the quality of life for Bangaloreans.

When the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests had sanctioned Rs 50 crore to the BWSSB in 2003, the deadline set to complete the upgradation of sewage system (phase I) in the City was August 2004. But, the BWSSB has failed to complete the work for various reasons. The revised deadline is December this year. If the authorities again fail to meet the deadline, then what is the action taken against the BWSSB? “Nothing.. We will get our next installment of Rs 100 crore too even if the work on hand is not completed,” says an official.

Under the Phase I, the BWSSB is expected to link all open sewage pipes to treatment plants, rehabilitate trunk sewers which includes desilting, repair and replacement of the existing pipes, remodelling of sewage pumping stations and six sewage treatment plants. About 3,300 km of pipes will be laid adding to the already existing 7,500 km of sewer lines. The BWSSB, after getting a survey report from Tata Consultancy Engineers Ltd (TCE), had entrusted the work to Sri Mauli Builders, Pune. The official records available with Deccan Herald indicated that only 69 per cent of the work has been completed while it was expected to complete all the work in August itself. If the work is not completed even by this year-end, then the contractor would be incurring losses, the sources said.
“Some of the slums, for example, the one near ISRO Layout at Domlur and the slum near Ulsoor Lake have not yet been evacuated despite having paid the stipulated amount to the Karnataka State Slum Clearance Board. Once the slums are evicted, we will get land to carry on our work,” said a BWSSB official.
The consulting agency has identified six zones based on the three major and three minor valleys through which sewage is directed to the STPs. About 418 million litres of sewage in Bangalore is treated at the STPs everyday before being let out to the natural valleys. After the completion of the project, there will be optimum utilisation of the STPs. This is because the leakage of raw sewage into the storm water drains will be checked to the maximum extent possible.

By 2006, approximately 34,30,735 people in Bangalore will be contributing sewage over 21,561.88 hectares, according to TCE. Based on these figures, it was found that the existing sewerage system was not strong enough to handle the expected sewage flow. Besides this, raw sewage spilling into the storm water drains was reaching water bodies and contaminating them. This project will plug the sewage leak to a large extent and is important from the environmental pollution angle, says the official.

Though the sewerage system has existed since 1922, serious works were taken up only since 1950. Given the complicated procedure of pumping water to the City from a distance of 100 km, through its only water source, the Cauvery, the City’s sewage system was ignored for a long time.

The CMCs, however, are not yet sewered and this will be taken up in the next phase, after the department gets its fund of Rs 100 crore, according to BWSSB.