It's now death of distance to solve City water woes

It includes a proposal for a dam at Mekedatu, plans to procure water from the tributaries of River Krishna and from River Hemavathi, besides diverting water from the west-flowing rivers like Nethravathi and Kumaradhara. 

The state government recently formed an expert committee, chaired by former BWSSB chairman B N Thygaraj and including nine others from different departments, to expedite the project.

One of the plans is to build a dam with a capacity of 45 tmc feet at Mekedatu. A senior BWSSB official said that a power generation plant could also be planned there, since the water falls from a height of 470 metres.

As per BWSSB chairman's presentation to the government on October 27, 2010, there is a plan to bring 30 tmc feet of water from River Krishna, i.e., from Alamatti Dam, located 400 kilometres away.

The plan also envisages providing water to all the areas on the way to Bangalore. A total of 12 tmc feet was planned to be procured for Bangalore City, said the BWSSB official.
There are also plans to divert west-flowing rivers like Nethravathi and Kumaradhara to procure 6 tmc feet of water, from a distance of 360 kilometres from the City, the official said.

Short-term plans

The BWSSB has also proposed 'short term plans' to save potable water being supplied at present, by checking the leakage of water, which is currently considered under the head Unaccounted For Water (UFW).

According to the official, 36 percent of water goes waste through leakage from supply pipelines. BWSSB plans to reduce the pilferage by 16 to 24 percent, by changing pipelines in the South division. 

"We are in the process of changing pipelines in the City, which are 40 to 50 years old. We will begin with South division, where pipelines from commercial establishments to households will be replaced using funds got from Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC)," he said.

There are also plans to increase the reuse of waste water. At present, only 20 percent of recycled waste water is being used for non-portable purposes in the City.

Paucity

An additional 500 MLD of water is likely to be supplied under the Cauvery Water Project (IV stage II phase). But the city will still fall short of its water requirement.

Including the proposed addition of 500 MLD, a total of 13.48 tmc feet of water is drawn from the Cauvery water project for the City.