Pai Layout: Marooned by neglect

Pai Layout: Marooned by neglect
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: A day after the chief minister visited Pai Layout after rising waters deluged it, life is slowly limping back to normal. One can still see the only main road soaked in slush, the damp walls betraying a five-foot-high water mark where the water level stood till a night earlier and the shoulder drains gurgling with fast flowing water. ‘‘That’s water from the Beniganahalli lake,’’ says A.P. Singh, who bought a three-bedroom flat here for Rs 17 lakh just a year ago.

Singh thought he was buying it for a song. On Monday morning, none of his family members, or others in his building, could get out. The fire force had to drain out water from the basement and rescue them. Ditto the case with neighbouring apartments. And the water still flowing fast from the Beniganahalli lake more than a km away has an outlet that goes under the Salem railway line and collects on the other side. It cannot go any further as a DRDO lab has constructed a compound wall.

This layout in KR Puram CMC is a classic example of being very much a part of the IT city and getting no attention at all. The list of don’t haves far outstrips the advantages of living less than 7 k.m. from MG Road: there is no secondary drainage, no piped drinking water, no sewage lines, no roads. The CMC seems to be only interested in collecting taxes from the well to do residents.

The layout by Bangalore standards is a small one, but is stacked with 52 apartments that house nearly 1,300 flats. Though formed in 1989, construction activity was in full swing only from 1998. But the builders nor the CMC anticipated any threat from the Beneganahalli lake, which has become a villain this monsoon.

‘‘We were not aware of the existence of the lake and never expected that much water to flow into our layout,’’ says a housewife who lives on the second floor. From her kitchen window she could see a part of the layout marooned and people wading in waist deep water.

But local residents are hard put to explain plastic material and garbage that had to be cleaned out of the drains to allow water to flow. ‘‘We are not asking anything other than basic amenities. Monsoon becomes a nightmare for us,’’ says Jayaram, another resident.

Ironically, the land developers have obtained sanctions from the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and paid the necessary fees too. And there are more apartments coming up, some of them already choking the drainage with debris. This has also led to water logging in these stretches.

As for the CMC, it is not ready to even take part of the blame. Though it has collected betterment tax and property taxes under SAS (self assessment scheme) it is not happy. ‘‘How can we provide basic amenities when we do not get sufficient returns in taxes from this area?’’ asks H.S. Amanulla, councillor, Ward No. 29, under whom this layout comes.

But Pai layout residents claim the developers have charged them a development fee to provide roads, drainage and drinking water, but did not.

Now the residents are up in arms against the BWSSB to which they have paid full money to supply Cauvery water. To add to their misery are the dug up BWSSB water lines.

According to R. Nagaraj, Secretary, Pai Layout Residents Welfare Association, the layout is located in a low-lying area and hence is vulnerable during monsoon.

The water flow has increased ever since the completion of the Cable-Stayed bridge and Beniganahalli flyover. ‘‘Unless the height of the lake tankbund is increased, there is no solution to this problem,’’ says Nagaraj.

However, L. Jayaram, president of Krishnarajapuram CMC, said: ‘‘We have given a contract to L&T to lay water pipelines for Cauvery water and UGD. We have sent a proposal to BDA to raise the tank bund of the lake up to two or three feet.’’