The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : They pay Rs. 3 for a pot of water

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They pay Rs. 3 for a pot of water

Afshan Yasmeen

Residents of Vivekanandanagar have not got piped water for a month now

Some spend at least Rs. 25 every day for water
Our complaints have gone unheard: residents

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

No alternative: Pots are lined up in rows as women wait for the water tanker at Vivekanandanagar in Peenya Dasarahalli.

Bangalore: “I think twice before buying onion by paying Rs.12 a kilo. But I am forced to pay at least Rs. 25 to buy water every day,” said a visibly distressed Venkatamma, a resident of Vivekanandanagar in Peenya Dasarahalli.

Ms. Venkatamma and her neighbours have been buying water daily for the last one month by paying Rs. 2 or Rs. 3 per pot. With the borewell connected to the mini-water scheme having dried up, the residents have not received a drop of piped water for the last one month.

This has only helped private water suppliers, who are selling water in the area like any other commodity. On Friday when The Hindu team visited the area, people were seen waiting for the tanker with pots. Though the tanker makes two trips to the area daily, the water is available on a “first come, first served” basis. And the man who brings the tanker turns on the tap only after his customer pays him. The frugal man collects the extra seepage in a bucket when people change the pots under the tap.

The residents, who work as helpers at construction sites and as domestic help, stretch their prized potfuls for drinking, cooking and all other purposes. “What will we eat if we spend all that we earn on water? Most of the times, we forgo even the luxury of drinking a cup of tea to save money for water,” said an anguished Zaibunissa.

“We don’t know where to complain. If we complain to the MLA he asks us to go to the CMC office and people there ask us to go to the BWSSB office. They say our area is in BBMP limits now. But nothing about our living conditions show that we are part of the city,” Narasamma, another resident said.

N. Lakappa, who runs a shop in the area, said the officials did not bother to even listen to their problem. “Why should we have a Government when it can’t provide water to the poorest of the poor?” he asked.

“When residents of neighbouring Netajinagar and Chokkasandra are getting water regularly, we do not know why we are being deprived of it,” he said.

BWSSB officials in the borewell division of the Peenya Service Station said that the electric motor used to pump water to the mini-water scheme here had become defunct.

“The old motor has to be replaced with a 10 hp motor. As we have no stock of it, we have placed an order for it,” a senior engineer said.

Denying that the residents had complained to him, he said the problem would be rectified in four or five days. “If the motor needed rewinding it could have been done in a day or two. But because we have to procure the motor from private firms, we need sometime,” he said.

To a question if any alternative arrangements would be made till then, he said: “It is difficult to supply water in tanker to the area because if we supply to one area, residents of other areas too will make a demand.”

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