The heat of the Cauvery agitation will not spare the residents of Bangalore as hundreds of farmers managed to stop pumping of 300 million litres of water to the city at Torekadanagahalli water pumping station on Tuesday.
The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board gets 900 mn litres of water a day from the station.
Enraged over the “nonparticipation” of Bangaloreans in protests against the release of water to Tamil Nadu, Cauvery River Protection Committee leader and former MLC Madhu Made Gowda led the farmers from Koppa and Malavalli taluks in Mandya district to the pumping station.
Gowda, former legislators Malajamma and Anadhani asked the officials to stop water supply to Bangalore, saying that people in Bangalore “should also know what would happen if water released to TN emptied the reservoirs”.
BWSSB executive engineer Nandakumar consulted higher officials and decided to stop the pumping of water.
Sources, however, said water supply resumed hours after the protestors left.
The protest brought traffic on Kanakapura-Malavalli main road to a halt for hours.
Meanwhile, 30 members of the Kabini Kavalu Pade got onto five coracles from Kempegowdana hundi and reached the Kabini dam after a three-hour journey to submit a memorandum to Tahsildar Shivakumar Swamy.
They raised slogans against the state and Central governments and the Supreme Court for the release of Cauvery water.
Claiming that about 25 tmc ft of water had flown to TN, they said further release of water would deprive Mysore and Bangalore of drinking water.
They were arrested and later released on bail.
KRRS leader Mahendra and others urged the government to stop the release of water from the Kabini and KRS reservoirs.
Parts of city to be hit
Residents of Bangalore South and Central Divisions are likely to face water shortage on Wednesday, as the protesters stopped water supply from Torekadanagahalli pumping station.
Water supply to several areas like Banashankari, Kumaraswamy Layout, Girinagar, BTM Layout, Chamarajpet, J P Nagar, Kotnur Dinne, V V Puram, Banappa Park, Coles Park and Srirampuram will be affected the most, according to BWSSB chief engineer (Cauvery Projeect) Narayan.
He said because of the pressure from the protesters, six pumps that supply water under the Cauvery 3rd Stage were stopped at about 2 pm.
The pumps were restarted around 4 pm.
“Cauvery 3rd Stage pumps 270 million litres per day.
As the pumps were stopped for about two hours, a considerable amount of water will be missing for supply on Wednesday,” said a BWSSB official at the pumping station.
Northern and eastern parts of the city might also feel the pinch as they were at the tail-end of the water supply chain, he added.
KRRS leader K S Puttannaiah said, “The protest was carried out by our youth wing just to make Bangaloreans join the protests.