BENGALURU: The Centre’s Department of Economic Affairs on Wednesday cleared a Rs 4,300-crore proposal to supply drinking water and establish a sewerage network for 110 villages in Greater Bengaluru.
The proposal has now been sent to BWSSB’s principal funder, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), for approval, a top BWSSB official said.
There will not be any shortage of water for the project as the state government had already allotted 10 tmcft from the Cauvery River in June last year as additional resource to meet the water demands of these villages and to redress other shortfall in the water supply.
The Board had submitted a Rs 5,019-crore proposal in March to the state government for clearance. The Cabinet had cleared it a month ago and sent it to the Central Ministry of Urban Development.
The technical committee of the department greenlighted the project and sent it back to the parent department, which dispatched it for clearance to the Department of Economic Affairs recently.
“The Economic Affairs department today (Wednesday) gave its clearance to the project. After much scrutiny, it has brought down the amount we had proposed to around Rs 4,300 crore,” an official said.
On the next step of action, he said JICA might take anything from a fortnight to a month to clear it.
“If we get the green signal from the funder, then we can go ahead with the tender process, which would take 45 days to complete.”
The detailed project report by BWSSB had specified that 400 million litres would be supplied to the villages on a daily basis and 3,000 km of pipelines, ranging from 100 mm to 1,000 mm diametre, would be laid.
When questioned about the reduced amount that would be okayed, the official said, “We can manage that with BWSSB’s funds.”
Another top official said things were moving “pretty fast” on the project.
The villages would be covered under the Cauvery Vth Stage Water Supply Scheme.