Karnataka - Mysore   

Enraged citizens rough up civic staff

MYSORE: Parts of Mysore went without water for the second consecutive day on Thursday. Enraged by this, people of various localities took the junior staff of the Mysore City Corporation and Vani Vilas Waterworks to task and roughed them up.

T.K. Layout and surrounding areas are among the worst affected. At Paduvarahalli, people staged a rasta roko, disrupting traffic on Hunsur highway for more than an hour.

People of T.K. Layout and Janata Nagar got into an argument with valve men and roughed them up. They said that their localities rarely received water and took the staff to task for irregular supply. They criticised the elected representatives for their active participation in “Mysore Utsav” instead of concentrating on redressing people’s grievances.

What was incomprehensible for the people was the inability of the authorities to provide drinking water to them when two major reservoirs near the city are full.

While the employees of Vani Vilas Water Works attribute the problem to the faulty distribution network, which needs to be overhauled, it is of little consolation to the people of Kuvempunagar, T.K. Layout, parts of Vontikoppal, Saraswathipuram, Jayanagar, Lakshmipuram, and parts of N.R. Mohalla who are deprived of proper water supply.

The public grouse was against the Mysore City Corporation and district in-charge Minister G.T. Deve Gowda who had promised to set right the anomalies in the drinking water distribution system before the onset of summer.

Mr. Deve Gowda had promised regular water supply once the second stage of Melapura Water Works was commissioned.

Though the second stage was “inaugurated” with much hype by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy in May, the people felt cheated as the authorities admitted that despite the inauguration of the project, water could not be supply for “45 days” for technical reasons.

Meanwhile, a few individuals are recklessly exploiting groundwater for commercial purposes. The corporation commissioner has admitted that he can do little to crack down on the exploitation of borewells. But non-governmental organisations find it intriguing that the authorities have turned a blind eye to the blatant exploitation of public borewells.

Mysore Grahakara Parishat and Association of Concerned and Informed Citizens of Mysore have apprised the Government of the prevailing “racket” in groundwater exploitation and called for its regulation. But in the absence of clear-cut guidelines, water supply has emerged as a major money-spinner for a few individuals.

Meanwhile, non-governmental organisations have taken exception to the corporation’s stand that it could not act in the absence of a clear cut law and have cited Sections 312 and 300 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, which mandates that no one could drill a borewell or dig a well without the local body’s permission. If the corporation implemented this provision of the law, the situation could be arrested to an extent, according to them.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Enraged citizens rough up civic staff
Teachers should be constant learners, says RIE principal
Waive loans without troubling farmers: Dharam Singh
Mysore Utsav inauguration evokes poor response
Protest against Government action
Sculpture Academy to hold camp
Training programme
Protest against Chamalapura thermal power plant continues in Mysore
Association’s plea

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu