Bengaluru: BWSSB to hire 100 water tankers for city

Bengaluru: While making reassuring noises about the water supply this summer despite the fast drying up Cauvery reservoirs, the BWSSB is leaving nothing to chance.   For the first time it plans to  hire as many as 100 water tankers to tide over a possible water crisis in the city and warns it will confiscate private tankers that fleece Bengalureans in their hour of need.

Although BWSSB engineer-in-chief,  Kemparamaiah claims  the board can cater to the drinking water needs of the city till May given the storage  of the Cauvery reservoirs and even later owing to the anticipated rain in the Cauvery catchment area, he  admits it is also preparing for the worst.

"In a first for the board, we are hiring as many as 100 tankers for the city to help it tide over a possible water crisis. Tankers were hired on this scale only when CMC areas were added to the BBMP way back in 2007," he reveals.

While the 100 tankers  will be used to supply water to slums and other such areas, he warns that private tankers that charge people exorbitantly will be seized. “But such action will be taken only during emergencies,” he explains.

Moreover , as a party of the contingency plan, the board has written  to government agencies such as the forest department, that  it may take over their tankers to supply water to the city if the need arises, according him. Also 40 new borewells will be sunk across the city in the coming month.

 BWSSB supplies 1350 to 1400 million litres of water per day (MLD) to the city

 It owns 68 tankers and  plans to hire 60 more in April and another 40  in May.

 Of the 7,900 borewells it owns, 690 have  already gone dry.

 Of the  9.24 lakh consumers it caters to,  3.29 lakh  have their own borewells.

 Forty locations across the city have been identified to sink borewells.

 The BWSS has sought Rs 74 crore from the state government to sink borewells and hire water tankers  this summer.