BENGALURU: To drastically reduce water losses in the city, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), is now giving a huge thrust to regularising them. A total of 20,000-plus illegal water and sewerage connections have been identified.On an average, 1450 Million Litres of Water per Day (MLD) are pumped to the city and a slightly reduced 1,429 MLD has been pumped during the past week. There are 9.8 lakh water connections registered with the BWSSB.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, BWSSB Chairman, N Jayaram said that nearly 36% of the water supply supply each day is unaccounted for. “Of this, 10% of the loss that occurs is the result of parallel water connections (an additional one created after paying for one connection), unauthorised connections and meter manipulation. Our primary focus is to first cut down on this loss which will not cost us any amount at all by regularising all of them.”
An informal target of August 15 was given to engineers on Monday to ensure the connections are regularised, the Chairman said. Chief Engineer Kemparamaiah said that a whopping 13,000 connections were reported from the C-3 Sub Division alone which comprised of Coles Park, Fraser Town, Pulakeshi Nagar and surrounding areas. The remaining connections, around 7,000 are distributed across the rest of the city.“To give priority to cracking down on these irregularities, engineers of the Maintenance Division have been asked to focus on this aspect during a meeting today. The Division has two Chief Engineers
and four Additional Chief Engineers (ACE). Each ACE has been asked to identify 2,000 connections a week,” Kemparamaiah said.
Asked about the possible penalty, the he said that an imprisonment of 6 months and a penalty of Rs 5,000 can be levied under the BWSSB Act. “Since water is an essential requirement for people, we have not taken very strict action. But our focus is definitely on regularizing all unauthorized connections,” he added.It is easier to book those with individual, small houses. “However, in case of huge apartments, the amount to be collected is huge with pro rata amounts to be paid too. We are creating a comprehensive database now on exact irregularity and sums will be paid,” he said.