BENGALURU: The Rs 5,500-crore Cauvery Water Supply Scheme Stage-V drinking water and drainage project that aims to supply drinking water to 110 villages in the BBMP limits is delayed because of a severe shortage of labour and the late arrival of equipment from Europe. With this, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) hopes to complete the project by December this year, a delay of six months caused due to the pandemic.
The project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency funded, is expected to supply 775 million litres of water per day to Mahadevapura, Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bommanahalli, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, KR Puram and Byatarayanapura. A senior BWSSB official told TNIE, “We are laying a 3,000-mm diameter pipeline for 70 km from Torekadanahalli (TK Halli) to Vajrahalli to transport water. Nearly 85% of this work is complete.”
New pumping stations have to be built at TK Halli, Harohalli and Tataguni adjacent to the existing ones to pump water to the villages. “This is where we are facing issues as skilled labour, like carpenters and bar benders, are available only in West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar. After the pandemic, the workforce is not the same. We have a labour shortage of 40-50% as of now and multiple contractors carrying out the work have assured us they are doing their best to augment the workforce soon,” said a senior official.
There are many made-to-order parts arriving from different countries. “We recently received high-capacity pumps (2000 HP) and motors from Japan and sluice valves from Turkey. We also got pump monitoring systems from Australia We are yet to receive water purifiers and different types of sensors from France, Germany and Switzerland,” he added.
The contracts were finalised by 2020-end with different deadlines given for nine different packages, said another officer. “The deadline for the final package expired in July 2023. The pandemic and lack of workforce delayed work in all the packages and the project was given a six-month extension like all infra projects in the state. We are now on track to completing the project by December,” he said.
Another official said that laying of all the distribution pipelines within areas have been completed. A water treatment plant with a 775 MLD capacity is being built at TK Halli.