Mysore ready for water rationing?‏

MYSORE: Get ready for water rationing. Faced with a faulty distribution network, Mysore City Corporation (MCC) has decided to ration the supply and will announce the schedule. The limited time supply is likely to come into force early next week. The rationing will be in place at least till May-end. 


The civic body will press five additional tankers, taking their number to 40, and start the operations from 6am. There will be an exclusive mobile squad to attend to complaints and the officials tasking with water supply will meet daily at 7pm and chalk out a strategy. MCC has Rs 1-crore special grant, while Rs 30 lakh sanctioned to each of the three city MLAs for water will be used to meet the drinking water needs of one million people. 


Armed with chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda's directive to directly handle water supply in the city, the civic body is focusing on supplying water to all 65 wards. Some pockets in 14 wards are facing problems owing to technical reasons, which has aggravated since a month, leading to street protests. While the local body was confident that the crisis could be effectively handled with the commissioning of 14 overhead tanks by mid-April, the problem has deepened with some areas going dry. With the election to the civic body nine months away, the issue has assumed political colours. 


What has made the issue tricky is the Cauvery row with the Tamil Nadu seeking the apex court to restrain Karnataka from using water in the four major dams in the Cauvery delta, including the Krishnarajasagar dam, the main source for Mysore's drinking water needs. The live storage, which is usable water at the dam, is half of what it was during the corresponding period last year. Sources told TOI that as on Friday, 8.212 tmcft of water is available at the dam, which was 16.280 tmcft last year. As against the maximum of 124.8 feet, the water level is 91.08 feet, which is 11 feet less compared to 2011. 


This is for the first time in four years that the civic body is going in for extraordinary move even as the main water source has not hit rock bottom, indicating the mess in the execution of the project to overhaul the water distribution network. 


District minister S A Ramdas blamed Jameshdpur Utilities and Services Company (Jusco), a unit of Tata, for the mess but didn't spare the MCC either. "I don't know who devised the terms of conditions for the O&M of the water distribution network before signing agreement with Jusco. We can't go back on it too, even when Jusco is ready to pack and go," Ramdas said. "For two months, we will supply water during a particular time and we will announce the schedule too," he said. MCC agreed that even when the water level had plummeted to 67 feet, it had ensured the supply, which it cannot do now. Ramdas attributed this to lack of co-ordination between the MCC and Jusco officials.