Who’ll plug the leak?

Who’ll plug the leak?
Bengaluru,







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The world may look at Bengaluru as the city of the future, but poor civic amenities could find it a place among the most back ward of towns. While con crete and glass marvels are changing its skyline, in the sewers below it is a dark, messy story.

Sewage flows into houses in several parts of the city. Life is hell for people in low-lying areas, who find filthy drain water gushing back into their toilets and spreading through the entire house.

At times muck oozes out of manholes in front of their doors, raising an obnoxious odour, and filthy water flows into the houses. The sewage brings with it flies, mosquitoes and diseases.

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board receives the highest number of complaints about over flowing sewage from the low lying areas of Wilson Garden.

“More than half of our phone bill is for calls we make to BWSSB,” says Mr Narayan, who lives in the area. Overflowing manholes and filthy water gushing back into the toilets and fill ing entire houses is routine at First Cross, 38th Main Road in Rose Garden Layout (East), in JP Nagar 6th Phase. After repeated complaints and repairs the problem still remains.

Mr Shamanna, who lives here, says, “The PVC pipes here cannot withstand the pressure. They should be replaced with wider metal pipes.” Says another resident, Ms Shyamala, “We spend a lot of money paying medical bills as our children suffer from fever, nausea and diarrhoea frequently.” There was a breakout of gastroenteritis when sewerage water leaked into the drinking water supply in Shamanna Gardens recently.

In Jayanagar, manholes regularly overflow in the 33rd and 36th crosses between the 6th and 9th main of Fourth Block, where the homes are built on a slope.

So bad is the odour here that people find it impossible to sleep at nights. “All we can do is buy a lot of perfume and room fresheners,” says Ms Sunanda, who lives in the area.

While the people blame the outdated narrow, plastic sewerage pipes for the drainage overflow, the BWSSB sees poor planning of the houses as the cause of all the trouble.

According to the BWSSB, the villains of the story are the builders. “They are responsible for 80 per cent of the problem. The pipes to let out rain water on the terrace should be connected to open drains on the streets. But in most houses they are connected to sewerage lines. This increases the pressure on the pipes causing the manholes to overflow and pushing the sewage back into the toilets,” say BWSSB offi cers.

When the problem is restricted to the rainy sea son, this has to be the cause they reason and contend that it is up to the people to set their houses in order instead of expecting the BWSSB to do anything about it.

“If the sewage overflow is through the year, then of course we will check to see if the pipes are blocked or are leaking and would repair them accordingly. If the pipes were too narrow we would replace them,” the officers say.

The people, however, are tired of the blame game and don’t see why the BWSSB cannot help them solve the problem, if the responsibili ty indeed lies with them. It is not who is to blame, but what needs to be done, that should be on the focus, they point out.