Poor maintenance of reservoir irks citizen's forum

Despite releasing of ` six crore government grants to repair the roof in 2009, it is still in a bad shape.

Major supply

The water is supplied to more than a quarter of areas of city from this reservoir, which has a storage capacity of 12 millions of water. The tank was in news when the roof top caved in various pockets and the water got polluted with construction waste and nestlings of birds.

Many birds were also found dead in the reservoir which made citizens furious on water works officials.

Two years down the line, there is little change.

The actual work on replacing the roof has begun just a month ago and the work is underway in a snail’s pace. The CSR has three separate compartments- 2 mgd, 4 mgd and 6 mgd and the officials have begun work on 2 mgd compartment.

The roof top has caved at new places on the roof of 4 mgd and 6 mgd compartments at the CSR.

Medical Education and District In-charge Minister S A Ramdas who had launched a big campaign against the poor status of the roof before as the MLA has now failed to ensure quick progress of work in his capacity of Minister. Ramdas never visited the CSR after becoming the Minister.

According to M Lakshmana, former chairman of Institution of Engineers, Mysore chapter and convener of the Association of Concerned and Informed Citizens of Mysore (ACICM), the quality of water supplied from the CSR still pose a threat to health.

The super bug found in New Delhi is known to spread through water and air and the infection can be fatal to humans, he said.

“There is no guarantee on the safety and purification of the water supplied. Is it not the duty of the District In charge Minister to follow up the matter when there is huge public money involved,” he questioned and recalled that Ramdas had sat on hunger strike in front of Vani Vilas Water Works (VVWW) demanding repair of the roof before he was elected the MLA and became Minister.

He urged the Minister and MCC authorities to speed up the work on construction of roof on the tank. Vijayanagar, Kuvempunagar, Saraswathipuram, Sharadadevinagar, Gokulam, K G Koppal, Kumbara Koppal, Brindavan extension and other parts city get water from the Vijayanagar tank.

Repair  works to take one year

When contacted, a VVWW official said that start of the work on the roofing project was delayed due to modifications done in the work.

Initially, it was decided to build the roof using galolum sheets.

Later, it was changed to RCC roofing. The work has begun on the 2 mgd compartment. It would not be viable to start the work on the entire compartment as the water supply to city will be obstructed.

The work has to be taken one after the other. The 2 mgd compartment requires more time as there are channels that passes through the roof. It will take another 2 - 3 months to complete it.

The work on 4 mgd and 6 mgd compartments will be taken up one after the other. Both are expected to be completed in a year. The 4mgd and 6 mgd compartment will be completed at faster rate, the source added.