Barring Mangalore & Mysore, No Daily Water to People in 5 City Corporations

From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Apr 16: People in all City Corporations of Karnataka – barring Mangalore and Mysore – do not get daily water supply. In fact, people in other five city corporations get water on alternative days or even once in three or four days.

Erratic power supply is the bane for all city corporations, which has affected drinking water supplies.

Tankers had to be pressed into service for supply of water in new areas and some select wards of almost all city corporations.

This startling information was revealed during a video conference held by Karnataka’s Development, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister S Suresh Kumar on Friday with Deputy Commissioners and Commissioners of seven city corporations of Mangalore, Davanagere, Bellary, Gulbarga, Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore and Belgaum cities.

The minister, who held the third video-conference with key officials of all the seven city corporations in the state in four months, told reporters afterwards that outdated distribution network, old pipeline system, and high percentage of leakage have severely affected drinking water supplies in all city corporations.

The minister directed all city corporation officials to focus on sanitation and drinking water supply in the coming months and also to come out with citizen-friendly initiatives to change the public image of functioning of the corporations.

The officials of all city corporations informed the Minister that there was no serious shortage in the availability of water in their city limits. But they were unable to supply of bulk water to residents due to high leakage in the network and outdated pipeline system.

Though city corporations such as Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga and Belgaum have river sources for supply bulk water, residents have been getting drinking water once in 3-4 days due to outdated distribution network, officials of corporations told the Minister.

Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj informed the Minister about the citizen-friendly initiatives taken up by the Mangalore City Corporation and said drinking water was being supplied to the city daily from the Nethravathi river. There were no reports of contamination of water so far, Ponnuraj said.

Mysore City Corporation Commissioner K S Raykar they corporation has been supplying water through tankers in 11 wards and some select pockets of other wards of the city. Water quality had been tested at different wards and there were no water contamination reports, he said.

Davanagere Deputy Commissioner K Amaranarayana said despite availability of water, the city corporation was unable to supply drinking water daily as there was no dedicated express feeder power line.

A Rs 11 crore project would be taken up to ensure uninterrupted power for pumping and supply drinking water daily. Now, residents of the city have been receiving water once in three days, Amaranarayana said.

The Belgaum City Corporation, which has been supplying water once in three days, was using four tankers daily to supply water in slum and select wards of the city.

The Minister, who was unhappy with the lack of new initiatives taken up by the Belgaum civic body, told the officials to launch citizen friendly measures for the benefit of the public.

Dharwad Deputy Commissioner Dharpan Jain spoke on new initiatives taken up by the district administration to issue land conversion certificates in less than two weeks. Earlier, officials used to take more than a year to issue certificates for conversion of agricultural lands in to non-agricultural lands. Services of senior citizens have been hired in all Nagara Mitra Kendras for addressing complaints, he disclosed.

Mechanised cleaning equipment for cleaning drainages:

The State Government has decided to purchase mechanised cleaning equipment for cleaning drainages and drainage holes in all city corporations of the State.

Each machine would cost Rs 25 lakh while the foreign equipment would cost Rs 1.25 crore. Annual maintenance cost would be about Rs. 75 to Rs 80 lakh, the Minister said disclosing that each corporation would spend Rs 5 to Rs 6 crore for purchasing mechanised equipment for cleaning drainages and holes.

``The practice of using human beings for cleaning drainages will be stopped and the work will be done through mechanised clearning equipment,” he said.

The city corporations would get more funds under the 13th finance commission and more funds would spend on solid waste management. All city corporations have been asked to prepare proposals on solid waste management, the minister said.

Referring to tax collections in city corporations, an official in the department said the Mangalore City Corporation achieved 97 % of the target while the Mysore City Corporation recorded 96%.

The average collection by all city corporations was 79 % in 2009-10 against below 50 % of the target in 2008-09, the official said.