Come Wednesday and Bengaluru will see its water supply increase with the commissioning of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme Stage IV, Phase II which is finally ready to take off after a delay of seven months.
The extra water is manna for a city that is short of 400 to 500 million litres of water per day (MLD). To begin with the project will bring an additional 200 to 300 MLD of water to the city every day, and then 500 MLD a day when it is fully commissioned by the end of the year.
The city is looking forward to an increase in its water supply after 10 years as the last CWSS Stage IV Phase I was commissioned in 2002.
The project which is being launched on the eve of the Kannada Rajyotsava Day, will especially benefit the new BBMP areas like Rajarajeshwarinagar, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Bomannahalli, Byatarayanapura, KR Puram, Mahadevapura and Kengeri , besides the core areas of the city.
The `3383 crore project has been conceptualised keeping in the mind the likely growth in population
that Bengaluru is likely to see up to 2016.
Bengaluru currently needs between 1350 and 1550 MLD of water in its core areas alone and between 1675 and 1940 MLD altogether if the area under the former urban local bodies and 110 villages that are now part of the BBMP, is taken into account. According to one estimate, the city will need 2095 MLD of water by 2021.
What this clearly means is that the city’s demand for water is not being satisfied even with the latest Cauvery project, a worrisome fact as with it, the BWSSB has exhausted its share of Cauvery water allocation.
The biggest plus of the project is that it marks the beginning of piped water supply to
some of the peripheral areas of the city.
Over 10,000 houses will be added to the BWSSB’s supply network starting Thursday. The project will also help stabilise the supply of water in the core areas of the city.