Clean water, regular power remain distant dreams

Clean water, regular power remain distant dreams

The Times of India


Bangalore: Each time Fredrick Yesiah opens a tap in his 3rd stage, Austin Town home, he has a hard time fighting down nausea. The murky brown water pouring out of the tap has a stench that fills his home.

“It has been three days, there has been no improvement,’’ Yesiah said. Calls to the area engineer of the water board have not helped, he added. When Yesiah’s family needs to bathe, they go to his relative’s place.

Yesiah is lucky in one sense. He gets running water, even if it is non-potable, in the taps. For many others living in the city’s fringes, that is still a distant dream. For example, people living in Devinagara, Basappa Layout and Kariyanapalya — all coming under Byatrayanapura CMC — spend their nights in makeshift shelters arranged by the CMC. CMC officials said they are supplying mineral water to these ‘refugees’.

“They vacate the camps in the morning and come back at night,’’ officials explained. There are other such temporary shelters put up wherever floodwaters have wreaked too much damage. And in these places, residents depend on either tanker supply or bottled water. The CMC areas have no piped water supply and under normal circumstances, use depend on borewells. “But right now, there is no power so the motors do not run. What can we do then,’’ a CMC official asked.

Within city limits, that is, areas supplied with Cauvery water by BWSSB, there is a suspicion that some drinking water lines have been damaged by the deluge, especially in places that are still water-logged. “But we cannot check the pipes till the water drains away,’’ BWSSB officials said.