BWSSB reaches only 8.49 lakh consumers

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has reached only 8.49 lakh consumers in the City, after facing a series of episodes of mismanagement and irregularities in providing and regularising water connections.

The number is inclusive of the 3.5 lakh consumers from the old City Municipal Council (CMC) areas.
The Board officials, in the last one month, have regularised 2,818 connections, including 1,747 connections in the old CMC areas. Despite making continuous efforts – through various campaigns – to encourage residents to regularise their water connections, there is still 46 per cent of the water supply not billed, but recorded as unaccounted for water (UFW).

A BWSSB official said that sometimes when there is an increase in the water supply, the percentage of UFW also increases to 50 per cent. That many residents, who already have water connections, are yet to regularise it is one of the main reasons for this hike.

T Venkataraju, BWSSB engineer-in-chief, said that the Board still faced problems, especially in the eastern areas, including KR Puram and pockets of Mahadevapura constituencies. “When the areas had acute shortage of water, the residents demanded and got free supply of water. Now, however, the residents have gotten used to the free supply and have not taken the initiative to regularise their connections,” he added.

The engineer said that the Board has formed nine groups of members who would be a part of a drive inclusive of inspection, disconnection and regularisation of the water connections. Though the drives are conducted at such areas too, whenever the water connections were disconnected, the residents would go back and reconnect them.

Irregularities
The BWSSB officials were mired in irregularities a year ago with regard to the payment received from the consumers, with two officials being involved in issuing fake acknowledgements to consumers. After a detailed audit, it was found that nearly Rs 24 crore that was to be deposited in the Board’s account was not done so. The Board, to address this problem, is conducting monthly audit of all the transactions and receiving payment only through demand draft.

Besides consistent effort to enrole consumers, BWSSB will also take up the project of plugging leakages using helium gas and acoustic technology, said the engineer.