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In what appears to be a gradual improvement on drinking water front at Thumbe Vented Dam, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has revised the schedule of rationing of water supply from existing three days to four days.
Thumbe Vented Dam is the lifeline of Mangaluru as it mainly caters to the drinking water requirement of the city. Beginning from Saturday, MCC has started to pump water for continuous four days and stop for two days, till the situation eases in the later days. Accordingly, water will be supplied non-stop for four days up to April 11 and stopped on April 12 and 13.
Addressing media persons on the site at Thumbe Vented Dam, Mayor Kavita Sanil claimed that corrective measures. In the last few years, over Rs 1 crore was spent on taking various works like repairing and deepening of borewells and tankers were used to tackle the situation, she added.
“It was the taxpayers’ money that was spent due to the dereliction of duty on the part of the officials,” she said. When water rationing system was introduced recently, water was supplied for 36 hours and stopped for equal number of hours, followed by three days continuous water supply and stopped for two days.
Now, the water is being supplied for four days with 4.64 metre of water available against maximum capacity of seven metres. At AMR dam at Shamboor, 5.48 metres of water is available against 17.73 metres of maximum storage capacity.
Brushing aside the charges being made by Opposition parties that she is indulging in water rationing to help the private tankers, she said forget private tankers, even water supplied from MCC-owned tankers is very rare. Except three tankers (two tankers of 6,000 litre capacity and one with 2,000 litre capacity) being pressed into service, no other tankers are used. But MCC cannot interfere with the affairs of private tankers to cap the prices, she said.
The mayor claimed that the number of cases has come down due to water rationing system. As of now, complaints are being received only from a few areas like Bajal, Gorigudde, Ashok Nagar and Pandeshwar, she claimed.
When the media persons drew her attention towards the charges that valvemen are trying to exploit the situation, the mayor she has held a meeting of valvemen at Bendoor pump house soon after she assumed the office.