Sewer water at home? Blame the civic staff

Instead of fixing overflowing drains, BWSSB staff mixed up pipelines, resulting in contaminated water in borewells in the locality, claim citizens

Instead of fixing overflowing drains, BWSSB staff mixed up pipelines,u00a0 resulting in contaminated water in borewells in the locality, claim citizens

If you have a overflowing manhole in your locality, then don't go to the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) staff, say residents of South End Road and Sirur Park road in Malleswaram. Instead of plugging the leak, workers in Malleswaram's South End Road found a shortcut by connecting the manhole to an adjoining storm water drain, leading to contamination of over 100 borewells in the locality.


Flushed: Secretary of Fortune Paradise apartment Vishwanath shows
the over flowing manhole connected to the drain on South End Road in
Malleswaram

A resident said, "It was a hole made to divert the sewage that mixed with the ground water and affected over 100 borewells."u00a0Overflowing manholes are nothing new to the city. The South End Road and Sirur Park road in Malleswaram are two among thousands. Six months ago, the BWSSB had issued notices to apartments to implement rainwater-harvesting facility, and accordingly, every apartment here has it.

"We spent around Rs 60,000 for the facility," said Vishwanath.Residents of this locality have given several written complaints to the BWSSB to rectify the problem. "They used to come and rectify the problem. It worked for a while, but the solution was not permanent," said R Vishwanath, secretary, Fortune Paradise Apartments.

"It stinks so bad, we can't even stand outside the main gate," he added. For the past one week, residents have stopped pumping the borewells. Some of them have even developed skin and stomach infections. "Lab results show that the water has ammonia. They have advised us not to use it for any purposes ufffd not even for washing," said Ramesh Kumar, a resident.

A team of BWSSB officials visited the spot yesterday, and promised to rectify the problem as soon as possible.Engineer-in-Chief T Venkataraju said, "We will have to find out whether it is an internal sewage leakage or from the main line. We will correct the problem in a week's time."

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