Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will chair a meeting on the drinking water crisis in the city on Monday afternoon. While Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar has held multiple meetings on the crisis, this will be the first time the Chief Minister will review the situation.
The review meeting comes amidst various measures having been announced to tackle the crisis, even as the government has drawn criticism over lax implementation on the ground. For instance, civic agencies have also not been able to effectively implement the ban of potable water for non-essential purposes.
No. of tankers
Meanwhile, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) Chairman V. Ramprasath Manohar said around 95% of water tankers had already registered with the civic body. 1,732 water tankers have registered with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as on March 15, which was the last date for registration.
However, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R. Ashok said that the government had themselves said there were around 3,500 water tankers in the city and only 1,732 have registered. The government is yet to implement the price cap it announced and it hasn’t even pasted stickers of the price cap on all registered tankers. He demanded that the government install GPS to track tankers and end the mafia.
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Flying blind
Meanwhile, a senior civic official said that both BWSSB and BBMP are supplying free water to 110 villages and the erstwhile City Municipal Corporations and Town Municipal Corporation areas were added to BBMP in 2007. However, the official said that there was no study on the water needs of these areas and presently they were “flying blind”.
Based on the population and available groundwater resources, there is a need for the BWSSB to conduct a study and identify the water needs of an area. Based on this only, civic agencies must try to supply water to these areas. “Presently, it is very ad hoc,” the official said.
