Karnataka has decided to divert six thousand million cubic (TMC) feet of water meant for irrigation to meet the urgent drinking water needs of its capital Bengaluru.
“I searched and found 6 TMC feet of irrigation water that we will bring to Cauvery as per our calculation. We’ll still be left with 1.5 TMC feet,” deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar told the Karnataka legislative assembly.
Shivakumar was replying to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party member CK Ramamurthy on why slum dwellers in his constituency Jayanagar were not being supplied Cauvery water. The deputy CM said supplying drinking water to Bengaluru “is a big problem and a major solution is needed to be found to meet the demand for water in the rapidly growing city”.
Shivakumar said that every year the city’s population is rising by 10 lakh and water has become a major issue.
“But for the sake of Bengaluru’s respect and pride, we want to prioritise drinking water,” the deputy chief minister said. He added that while rates of all essential services have been raised, the water tariff has not gone up since 2013 “due to politics and other reasons”.
The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has been providing 10,000 litres of Cauvery water free of cost every month since 2017.
“There are 32,510 families in SC and ST colonies. In Jayanagar constituency, there are 5,515 households getting free Cauvery water every month,” the deputy CM said.
Shivakumar also holds the portfolio of Bengaluru development minister and acknowledges that the IT capital of India is facing a severe water shortage and nearly 20 per cent of the supply to the city comes from tankers.
“Tankers don’t get Cauvery water. They get it from borewells, they fill it in their tanks and sell it to residential complexes, etc. We need a major solution and that is why we are fighting for the Mekedatu project. I need your cooperation,” the deputy CM appealed.
The Mekedatu drinking water project has been a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka because of the Cauvery water dispute. The ruling Congress has been pitching to build a dam on the Cauvery, which it says would be a viable solution to the water crisis faced by Karnataka and specifically Bengaluru.
The Mekedatu project to build a dam on the Cauvery river close to Tamil Nadu was a source of conflict between the two states for years.
Bengaluru has approximately 10.37 lakh households that are supplied water from BWSSB. Around 1,450 million litres per day (MLD) of Cauvery water is pumped from a distance of 100 km to the city to meet the drinking water demands. Bengaluru gets an additional 400 MLD of water from 10,995 borewells, though the requirement is much higher.
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