BENGALURU: Faced with a barrage of complaints from residents of South Bengaluru recently on reduced water being supplied to them, the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board has now given the responsibility of the operation of major valves to senior officials in every Division.
The Assistant Executive Engineer and the Executive Engineer have now been entrusted with the responsibility of the operation of all major water valves.
The Banashankari Ground Level Reservoir, which can store up to 19.5 Million Litres of Water Per Day is the point from which Cauvery water enters the City after starting its journey from the T K Halli reservoir and gets distributed to other areas. It also caters to Padmanabha Nagar, Yediyur, Jayanagar and a few others parts of Bengaluru South, explained a top official.
Despite the BWSSB increasing pumping of water to the City early this month, complaints of shortage of water perplexed many.
"Top officials visited the reservoir a couple of days ago to check if there were leakages of any kind of issue. After an assessment of water distributed across the City, it was finally understood that the problem arose because of many engineers in different Divisions drawing more than their allotted water for the areas under their jurisdiction," he said.
In a bid to ensure the public did not come out with any water-related complaints in summer, this had occurred.
"It was the valve men and the Assistant Engineers who were responsible for valve operations so far. But after this big issue that those supplied water from Banashankari reservoir faced, we have taken this major step," another official said.
The idea is to ensure that all areas in the City get the required quantum of water, he added.
Asked if the additional 35 Million Litres of Water Per Day being pumped could be diverted here in case of any shortage, a senior engineer said, "The extra water being pumped is mainly aimed at supplying water to the Peripheral areas of the City. The methodology of transporting water to them has been done with a different kind of transmission design. It cannot be diverted suddenly whenever there is a shortage anywhere."
There is a possibility in future that a way of linking that pipeline with the core areas of the City can be created, he added.