Civic agencies prefer to divide and rule!

Civic agencies prefer to divide and rule!
The Times of India

Bangalore: Do our civic agencies meet regularly to chalk out strategies so that they deliver services better?
That question has come into sharp focus just now because of the battering Bangalore has received in the past couple of weeks. How can a city’s infrastructure — tripped power lines, broken electricity poles, overflowing drains, flooded roads — collapse in such a spectacular fashion every year, is what citizens ask.

Reason: there is hardly any coordinated action by the main civic providers. For instance, Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) and Bescom (the city power company) fight over everything from tree-trimming and road-digging to even, drain-desilting.

Overflowing manhole chambers:
Clogged drains are a major pain for citizens, but there’s another equally thorny (and smellier) problem — overflowing manhole chambers. This is a common sight, especially when it rains. Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) officials said this happens when stagnant rainwater (from houses, commercial buildings, hotels and so on), is let into the board’s sanitary lines, which, in turn, get overloaded. The problem occurs at other times too because then buildings and houses with borewells also empty their waste water into the sanitary lines.

To curb this, BWSSB wanted to impose a sanitary cess of Rs 50 per house on borewell-owners. But this has been hotly debated in the BCC council. Corporators and apartment-owners have denounced the move as an ‘anti-people,’ one. Now BCC has urged the board to exempt borewells. The board is said to be considering the petition.

Some cooperation: As the cess is a touchy issue, BWSSB is tackling overflowing manhole chambers with sewage-jetting machines. And this monsoon, it has even lent one machine to the BCC. In fact, BWSSB and BCC are also cooperating on another project — diverting sewage from SWDs.

If only these civic agencies did not wait for desperate situations to reluctantly come together.