MANGALORE: The city is facing a drinking water crisis in the middle of the monsoon even though the vented dam at Thumbe is full. Taps have been dry for the past three days. Some households have had no water for the past week.

Even low-lying areas are facing a shortage this season. The engineering division of the Mangalore City Corporation is perplexed, as it is not able to find the reason for this scarcity.

Mangalore City Corporation Commissioner Krishnappa Poojary blamed the Mangalore Electricity Supply Corporation (MESCOM), saying the power supplied to the Thumbe pumping station and the clarification station at Bendoor was either of low voltage or there was no power at all.

For the past three days power supply had been very erratic owing to which water could not be pumped for the required duration.

However, Naveen D'Souza of Kankanady has a different view. According to him, the city was at present getting water supply once in two days. The citizens had therefore started storing huge volumes of water in underground sumps and overhead tanks.

The corporation should immediately return to the daily water supply schedule to end the problem of hoarding water, he said. Mangalore Mayor K. Ashraf has been swarmed with reports from all parts of the city about the water shortage. Further, councillors alleged that MESCOM was resorting to arm-twisting by shutting down power to the water distribution facility.

MESCOM sources said that Mangalore needed at least five sites for setting up substations and upgrading others. But sources agreed that it was not easy to identify and acquire land for the purpose.

According to N. Yogish Bhat, MLA, Energy Minister H.D. Revanna, during one of his visits to the city, urged the corporation to identify land and hand them over to MESCOM. It has not been done so far.

Mangalore City Corporation Executive Engineer Suresh Babu said since the pumps were 30 years old, it was but natural for them to wear out. The problem was compounded by the delay in repairing the pumps, as spare parts had to arrive from Pune.

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