People want MLAs to get them free water connection

House owners in newly-added areas to the city are asking their MLAs to get them water connection from BWSSB free of cost.

Yelahanka MLA S R Vishwanath said, “As the BWSSB is unable to utilise all water drawn from the newly-commissioned Cauvery IV Stage II Phase drinking water project, I started asking the people to get authorised water connections from BWSSB. But they are asking me to bear the cost of obtaining the connection. They are not willing to pay prorata and other charges. I even tried to convince them by offering to pay for the pipes required for drawing water to their sites and the BWSSB officials simplified the procedures after we requested them to do so. Yet, they are not willing to get water connections.”

K R Puram MLA N S Nandish Reddy too said very few people are coming forward to get water connections. However, he refused to reveal the details.

BWSSB Engineer-in-Chief T Venkatraju said water is supplied free of cost from  borewells to the newly-added areas.

“House owners have to pay prorata charges  fixed on the basis of the area of construction. Therefore, the people are doing everything possible to avoid paying for water. It is very difficult for  civic agencies to stop supplying water from the borewells till adequate number of connections are given to each area,” he said.

Though the BWSSB has the capacity to draw 500 million litres of water per day (MLD) to supply water to the newly-added areas, it is drawing only 200 MLD due to lack of demand for water in those areas. At present, the BWSSB has more than seven lakh connections and is drawing 1,100 MLD from all stages of Cauvery drinking water project.

Vishwanath said, “People may start getting water connections during summer as many borewells in my constituency have dried up and I am sure that many more will go dry this summer.”