3,000 homes get dirty, foul-smelling water

While the residents of Mathikere have been receiving dirty water for the past six months, they were shocked to see the water filling their storage sumps entirely black on Thursday.

Their complaints to BWSSB engineers have gone without response.

“About 3,000 to 4,000 residents from 2nd Main to 13th Main between the Ramaiah College bus stop and Netaji Circle have been receiving contaminated water,” said M V Nagaraj, a resident, adding that no official had visited the locality to check the problem.

He said the water emits a foul odour and is unusable for anything. Residents hire water tankers for non-potable purposes and use water from the filtration plant for drinking. But BWSSB assistant executive engineer K V Deepak insisted that the contaminated water went to the houses only from Thursday morning. “There was no water supply on Wednesday, leaving a vacuum in the pipes that absorbed the dirty water from the surrounding areas where they were laid,” he said.

“We received complaints (about the contaminated water) only on Thursday morning and we settled it by afternoon. We have cleaned some houses and some sumps,” he said, adding the dirty water had only gone to about 500 houses.