BENGALURU: Is Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) supplying contaminated water to residents of Shanti Nagar’s Nanjappa Road? Yes, according to residents of the locality, which has over 250 houses.
BWSSB diverted the sewage line running from MG Road to Shanthi Nagar about 10 years ago. Since then, they have been getting contaminated water, especially during monsoon. If left unchecked, the sumps get filled with contaminated water, the residents said.
Renuka Prasad, founder president of Shanthinagar Residents’ Welfare Association, said that despite bringing the matter to the notice of local MLA NA Harris and BWSSB officials several times, nothing has been done to rectify the problem.
“In the WhatsApp Group of the association, some residents have complained that they face health problems such as diarrhoea frequently due to water contamination. The problem should be addressed at the earliest,” Prasad said.
Another resident said that the locality has been getting contaminated water for the past 10 years. BWSSB offers only temporary solutions such as cleaning sumps whenever contaminated water is supplied.
“We need a permanent solution. We can’t get water pumped out of our sumps at regular intervals. The foul smell because of contaminated water is unbearable. If the civic officials and people’s representatives are serious about the problem, they should get an FIR registered against the local BWSSB engineers under the Disaster Management Act,” a senior citizen of the locality said.
People who have rented houses in the locality are planning to move away because of this problem. It is really surprising that the problem has not been fixed even after 10 years, a landlord in the locality said.
Nagaraj, executive engineer of BWSSB, Shanthi Nagar, said the water and sewage lines in the area were laid long ago. The problem is because of this.
“Work to fix the problem will be taken up under Unaccounted For Water (UFW) that aims at cutting down wastage of water and tenders will be invited soon. The sewage line from here, which is connected to the Intermediate Sewage Pumping Station (ISPS) near Shanthi Nagar Bus Depot, may have a problem. Work on ISPS is almost complete. In a month, all issues pertaining to water and sewage lines will be sorted out,” he said.