It is a triple whammy for the city – hot summer, power cuts and water shortage. Bengaluru that had already been struggling with water crisis has been given a raw deal with frequent and long power cuts.
Power cuts also mean disruption in water supply as each power cut of 10 minutes shuts down pumping stations for more than three hours affecting the water supply for days to come. It takes at least two days to normalise water distribution in such cases. The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board said it is helpless when there is no power for it to pump water. “Before the summer started, we had had a meeting with Bescom and the KPTCL officials to ensure that there are no power cuts at pumping stations. Though the officials of the two departments had assured us, power cuts have continued,” said T. Venkataraju, Engineer-in-Chief, BWSSB.
“Quantity of water procured is not a major problem as it remains the same (around 950 MLD) even in summer. But there is a problem in supply and distribution whenever there is a shortage of power. Moreover, the city has a perennial shortage of around 300-350 MLD, which goes up to 500- 600 MLD in summer,” he said. Also, BWSSB water pumps have been designed to operate at a frequency of 48.5 cycles per second, which is required to pump around 900 million litres of water per day to the city. The pumping stations of BWSSB have witnessed many instances of drop in the frequency of power supply, which results in a drop in the quantity of water.