Excuses galore for water woes

Excuses galore for water woes
Deccan Herald

The residents of Pillanna Garden in Thomas Town, have no choice but to buy water. That makes it an additional monthly expenditure of Rs 400, apart from the monthly water bill of Rs 250 - Rs 300 remitted to the BWSSB. The complaint appears to be that of ‘erratic’ water supply. But a closer look at it and you find the problem in layers - from illegal connections, interruption of power supply, gradient problem to goondaism.

“It is a persistent problem and the BWSSB does not seem to be arriving at a permanent solution. A street, which is 25 ft away gets water supply in abundance. But the houses on 4th Main road and 11th Cross have no supply. After I shot off at least 20 letters in the last one year to the BWSSB chairman, the pipeline was inspected by BWSSB engineers. But they too have failed to solve the problem,” rued a resident of I Stage, Pillanna Garden.

“In the past, we have had some elements tampering the valves. There is a need to evolve a proper system of vigilance and maintenance to ensure regular water supply,” he added.


Meanwhile, the engineers, who inspected the spot have a different take on the problem. “The problem was severe over the last few weeks as there was power interruptions. With intermittent power supply, we will be forced to release water for more than four hours in each area, which will affect the water supply in other areas. Some houses are on a higher altitude and may have to draw water from the distribution lines,” said an engineer.

“We allow them to draw water up to a distance of 105 ft from the distribution lines. But this has to be set up at their own cost, which will require permission from BMP for road cutting,” he added.

Senior BWSSB officials attribute the scarcity to illegal connections. “We suspect more than 50 per cent of connections in Pillanna Garden are illegal.

This affects the water supply to those households with authorised connections. The problem needs to be tackled at a higher level. We will be instructing our AEEs to keep a check on these developments,” said a senior official.