Severe water crisis grips Dasarahalli constituency

Summer is at least six months away, but the Dasarahalli Assembly constituency already finds itself in the midst of a severe water crisis.

Several participants at an interactive session organised by Deccan Herald-Prajavani under the ‘Citizens for Change’ initiative on Saturday raised the issue of acute water scarcity.

Borewells have dried up and lakes, which are in quite a good number in the area, have either been encroached upon, disappeared or have turned into huge septic tanks. The only saviour could be River Cauvery, but she too is elusive.

Cauvery water is supplied in Dasarahalli only once a week. The BWSSB finds itself as helpless as the MLA of the area, S Muniraju. To add to the woes, electricity plays truant, paralysing water supply.

Muniraju says the Centre had cancelled its grant of Rs 549 crore for water projects as it was in the process of scrapping the name of the scheme called Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

“Till the new scheme comes up and the budget is announced, we will have to face hardship,” the MLA told Deccan Herald.

Half of the discussion revolved around the water scarcity with citizens demanding that officials address this basic need.

N Sridhar of Bagalgunte was the first to demand a Cauvery connection, followed by Rame Gowda, former councillor of the erstwhile Dasarahalli City Municipal Corporation (CMC).
He said the newly added villages, four CMCs and one TMC had paid Rs 500 crore to the erstwhile Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) before being merged to form BBMP.

“Despite paying Rs 500 crore, we have not got Cauvery water,” Gowda rued.
Gundamma of Kalyan Nagar complained that she got Cauvery water once a week and borewell water was also not supplied. The executive engineer of the BBMP agreed that water supply had been paralysed due to power cuts.

The worst sufferers are the apartment dwellers who have no option but to look to BWSSB to supply water.

SWD encroachment

The initiatve brought to the fore other key issues such as encroachment of stormwater drains (SWD), choked underground drains, overflowing manholes, dying lakes, garbage problem and law and order issues at certain places.

Somashekhar of Shettyhalli, said the BWSSB had directly connected the sewage lines with SWD, due to which the lakes were filled with sewage. He said the SWDs were choked due to dumping of debris and garbage into them.

The assistant executive engineer of BBMP’s SWD division said dearth of funds hindered desilting of the SWD. Ramakrishnappa of Byraveshwara Nagar highlighted the poor state of Dasarahalli lake.

Chikka Hanumantha of Sapthagiri Layout put forth ten major demands, including action against the apartment dwellers letting sewage flow on the road, park on a public land and proper garbage disposal.

Aarathi of Dasarahalli ward accused the joint commissioner, who was absent, of not utilising the funds for the downtrodden communities properly.

“Funds meant for SC/STs for the three consecutive years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 were not utilised. Nothing came forth whenever we approached him,” he said.

Subhash Shetty of Dasarahalli raised the issue of the pathetic state of Nagasandra lake and also the non-issuance of khathas to apartment dwellers. The BBMP official said khata would be issued only if the apartment residents paid the development charge.

MLA
S Muniraju -- 9845093325
Corporators
K Nagabhushan,
Shettihalli ward — 9845019093
Lokesh, Mallasandra ward -—9611921030
K Narasimha, Bagalgunte ward — 9535097405
Umadevi, T Dasarahalli ward — 9448308902
Sarvamangala,
Chokkasandra ward
— 9845057001
Lalitha, Peenya Industrial Area ward— 9900118099
Padmavathi,
Rajagopalnagar ward — 9845535908
Bhagyamma K,
Hegganahalli ward — 9343731898

Contact numbers of
officials
V Doddappa,
Joint Commissioner, BBMP — 9448976154
Siddegowda,
Chief Engineer, BBMP
— 9480685348
R S Paramesh, AEE, BBMP
— 9448731249
Ramakrishna, BBMP
— 9980063247
Purushotham, AEE, BWSSB — 9686448013
Rangaraju, AE, BBMP
— 9448143426
Natesh Babu, EE, BBMP
— 9448069647
Marulasidappa, AEE, BBMP — 9480684553
H B Rajanna, ARO, BBMP
—9480683162
B N Shivanna, RI, BBMP
— 8747001489
Nagaraj, AE, BBMP
— 9845106083
Nataraj Sudha, BMTC,
—7760991339
Smitha, BBMP
— 9483325033
Sudarshan Singh, SI,
Soladevarahalli — 9742132486
H R Chandrashekhar,
Superindentent –
Horticulture— 9845014293
R K Mohan, AEE, BDA
— 9902063339
Manjunath, AE, BBMP
— 9844090744
L Nagarathna, ARO, BBMP — 9480684554
P B Kenchappa, ADAH, BBMP — 9480683400
Lokamatha, BBMP
— 9448567056
B S Mukund, EE, BBMP
— 9480685815
Rudramuni R T, AE, BBMP
— 9916257820
Divya, health officer, BBMP — 9164555027
Sunandamma P M — health officer — 9731160575
Raje Gowda, AE, BBMP
— 9740860533
Nagesh, AEE, BBMP
— 9480684313
B Raju, CI, Traffic
— 9480801923
Manjunath Reddy, JE, Bescom — 9449865418
Ravindranath, SE, BBMP
— 9480683158.