NGO's water plan interests BWSSB minister

Rs 24,000-crore estimation to meet Citys water needs

Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) Minister S Suresh Kumar has evinced interest in a plan prepared by the Centre for Policies and Practices (CPP), an NGO, to solve the growing demand for water in the City.

Despite having a government-appointed expert committee to draw long and short term plans to meet the City’s water requirement, the minister has asked the Board officials to prepare a report based on the finding in CPP’s ‘Bangalore’s water famine 2020 – a ticking time bomb’.

“CPP’s plans are mainly about how Bangalore can save and utilise water within its periphery unlike expert committee’s report, which has plans of bringing water from other rivers.  Both, the CPP and the expert committee member will be called for a joint meeting shortly to prepare a comprehensive plan for Bangalore City’s water woes,” said Suresh Kumar.

The expert committee report talks mainly about drawing more water from Cauvery, diverting west flowing rivers like Nethravathi and drawal from sources like Tunghabhadra and Krishna.

V Balasubramanian, retired additional chief secretary and chairman of CPP said in his report, that BWSSB cannot draw more than 1,400 million litres of water per day as the Cauvery Tribunal’s allocation for Bangalore City is only 19 TMC (thousand million cubic), which is exhausted with the supply of 1,400 mld.

Expensive affair

He said BWSSB’s proposed plan of drawing water from Almatti dam to Bangalore by surface canal or from Hassan is an expensive affair.  

Terming the project of diverting west-flowing rivers towards Bangalore as a ‘bizarre scheme’, he said, such un-economical schemes are ‘contractor’s dream and environmentalist’s nightmare’.

CPP has estimated a project of Rs 24,000 crore, wherein an amount of Rs 1,250 crore can be spent on reducing leakages of the six lakh-odd water connections from 30 to 15 per cent in core areas from source to house connections.

Maintenance contract

This can be done under ‘maintenance contract’ system as implemented in Hubli-Dharward, Gulbarga and Belgaum. An amount of Rs 10,000 crore to be spent on removal of encroachment and maintenance of 850-km of stormwater drains (SWD) with proper servicing tracks.

An amount of Rs 5,000 crore could be spent on rejuvenation of lakes and maintenance and Rs 2,750 crore on segregating sewage from SWDs, optimum treatment in sewage treatment plans (STPs), tertiary treatment plans, new STPs and upgrading existing STPs including Vrishabhavathi valley STP and laying dual pipelines. 

And an amount of Rs 5,000 crore could be spent on rainwater harvesting and other miscellaneous work.