Elevated localities in city reel under water shortage

Officials attribute crisis to Jusco for replacing gate valve system to loop type

The volume of water being pumped into the city from both the Kabini River and Cauvery River over the years has increased. The water available now should be sufficient to supply to all households in the city. However, people residing in houses in elevated places have been complaining repeatedly about not receiving water adequately, said officials of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC).

An official, on condition of anonymity, said, since the Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (Jusco) was assigned the responsibility to create a system to provide water 24/7 to the city, the problem has aggravated.

Recently, when Mayor M J Ravikumar and MCC officials visited the Kabini Dam, the engineers explained that the available water is sufficient for one more month. The city is presently getting 240 million litres per day (MLD) of water for domestic purpose — 190 MLD of water from the River Cauvery, mainly from the KRS Dam, and 60 MLD of water from Kabini River. While there are 1,65,000 households with legal connections, there is an estimated 25,000 illegal water connections.

May first week was miserable for the people, in a majority of the wards under the city limits, as the taps went dry from May 4 to 9. Private suppliers of water in tankers had a field day. Now, the officials claim that the water supply in the city has resumed to normalcy. They claim that the water is being supplied daily to some areas, while water is released on alternate days in the rest of the areas.

The officials, who prefer not to be named, said, the reason for the households not getting water supply is the change in the pipeline system, effected by the Jusco. “Since the days of the Wadiyar kings of the Yadu dynasty, in Mysuru city, there was a ‘dead end’ valve system. There were numerous gate valves and they were used manually to ensure supply of water to all streets.

Depending on the available pressure of water, earlier, some gate valves were closed to enable flow of water to difficult terrains. With an excuse to reduce expenses on human resources, Jusco changed the system to loop type, reducing the number of gate valves. Thus the number of valvemen were reduced. But, manual management of the water supply to ensure water supply to all households is not possible,” the officials said.

“To ensure equitable distribution of water to all households, the system has to be reversed. It will take a lot of time and also involves a lot of expenditure. Meanwhile, the residents have to bear some inconvenience,” the officials add.