BENGALURU: Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has collected 1.1 lakh in fines in three days from 22 cases of violations related to using potable water from Cauvery river and borewells for car wash.
BWSSB issued a notice on March 10, informing the public of a fine of 5,000 for each violation of potable water use. It specified activities for which potable water is banned, such as car washing, gardening, and large construction projects.
“The city is facing a water crisis, and our orders were in line with that. We started enforcing the orders on restrictions only from Friday after carrying out awareness until then. Between Friday and today (Sunday), we have booked 22 cases and collected spot fines from people and given them receipts like traffic police do,” BWSSB chairman V Ram Prasath Manohar told TOI.
While there are six major activities that the board is looking at, the focus in the first phase of enforcement has been car washing, he added. “People are using sprays and hoses connected directly to taps and a lot of water is wasted. All cases were based on our spot inspections and complaints from local residents. We will continue with our drive,” he said.
According to BWSSB, most cases came from the board’s southeast division – 13 cases worth 65,000 – while the remaining are spread across east, north, northeast and southwest divisions.
CM Siddaramaiah, deputy CM and Bengaluru development minister D K Shivakumar, and officials from BWSSB and BBMP have been allaying fears of the city completely running out of water this summer, but none of them have denied the crisis at hand.
With both southwestern and northeastern monsoons having failed to recharge groundwater tables in the city, BWSSB had, as early as second week of Jan, written to the Cauvery Neeravari Nigama (under the water resources department) to prioritise Bengaluru’s drinking needs and reserve water for the Capital city at the KRS and Kabini reservoirs.
BWSSB issued a notice on March 10, informing the public of a fine of 5,000 for each violation of potable water use. It specified activities for which potable water is banned, such as car washing, gardening, and large construction projects.
“The city is facing a water crisis, and our orders were in line with that. We started enforcing the orders on restrictions only from Friday after carrying out awareness until then. Between Friday and today (Sunday), we have booked 22 cases and collected spot fines from people and given them receipts like traffic police do,” BWSSB chairman V Ram Prasath Manohar told TOI.
While there are six major activities that the board is looking at, the focus in the first phase of enforcement has been car washing, he added. “People are using sprays and hoses connected directly to taps and a lot of water is wasted. All cases were based on our spot inspections and complaints from local residents. We will continue with our drive,” he said.
According to BWSSB, most cases came from the board’s southeast division – 13 cases worth 65,000 – while the remaining are spread across east, north, northeast and southwest divisions.
CM Siddaramaiah, deputy CM and Bengaluru development minister D K Shivakumar, and officials from BWSSB and BBMP have been allaying fears of the city completely running out of water this summer, but none of them have denied the crisis at hand.
With both southwestern and northeastern monsoons having failed to recharge groundwater tables in the city, BWSSB had, as early as second week of Jan, written to the Cauvery Neeravari Nigama (under the water resources department) to prioritise Bengaluru’s drinking needs and reserve water for the Capital city at the KRS and Kabini reservoirs.
Denial of responsibility! Swift Telecast is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – swifttelecast.com. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.