BENGALURU: While the coordination meeting of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) ended by chalking out plans to tide over the water crisis this summer, residents fume as no decision was taken on regulating private water tankers. Residents say that they are at the mercy of water tankers and they are being fleeced. They complain that the price of water has gone up and in areas like Rajarajeshwari Nagar, even though the citizens are willing to shell out extra, the waiting time for the tanker is more than three days.
Prakash Murugan, a resident of Rajarajeshwari Nagar, said: “Our borewell is more than 1,000 ft in depth and has gone dry. While we have a Cauvery water connection, the supply is erratic and for a long time we and our company labourers have been depending on private water tankers.”
Murugan said that for a 6,000-litre capacity water tanker, they paid Rs 400 last year. “Early this year, the water supplier hiked it to Rs 700. From the past few weeks, the cost of the same tanker has crossed Rs 2,000 and that too with a waiting period of more than three days. If we have to get water immediately, then the cost is Rs 3,000 per tanker,” he lamented.
The situation is similar in many parts of the city, especially in the areas falling under east Bengaluru and the 110 villages that were taken under the ambit of BBMP.
“Officials say that they have plans to supply water to the areas facing water crisis. But in all these years, we have hardly seen BWSSB supplying water during summer. We are at the mercy of the private tankers who have hiked the rates based on the demand” said a resident of Mahadevapura.
“Once the Cauvery Stage V is commissioned, the majority of the water crisis in Bengaluru will be taken care of. We are hopeful of supplying Cauvery water to the parched parts of the city in May,” a BWSSB official said.