BWSSB - current projects and progress updates

From a BWSSB perspective, I found 3 critical projects that we need to track the progress of:

a. CWS – Stage 4, Phase 2. This will supply the city with additional 500 MLD and was supposed to kick off in Dec 08 (no news yet). Completion is slated for 2011. Post this, city is supposed to receive water supply on a daily basis, unlike now when it is supplied only once in 2-3 days. Progress of project needs to be tracked, but an interesting report in Deccan Herald summarises the challenges in this project. http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul302008/city2008073081782.asp

b. Greater Bangalore Water Supply and Sanitation Project –

Again there is very little reported in the media on GBWASP (Greater Bangalore Water Supply and Sanitation Project) except for the fact that Janaagraha walked out of a participation in this project in 2007. Projected completion date for this project is 2012 – it was reported that BSY government will allocate Rs 100 crore for the interim arrangements under this project, while the actual project cost is around 3400 crores. The last media report I could find mentions that water supply was not enacted for Ramamurthynagar and Pai Layout areas (as of Jan 2008), inspite of charges being paid 3 years ago. It also mentions that BWSSB engineers have been fleecing the residents by charging user contribution at 10% on the cost. That apart, engineers have been collecting Rs 2,000 for inspecting the house to levy prorata charges.

c. Integrated Water Resource Management Project – There are not many details available on this project. I went through the BWSSB official site as well as some other resources on the net on BWSSB and its functioning – there are clearly gaps in the information, and I am summarizing them below. If someone is able to provide clarity on these, it will be great: 

• The BWSSB site last publishes the financials of BWSSB for the year 2001 – 2002. Is there any other way that we can get to know their current financials? And clearly no mention of the 3383 crores that has been obtained as loan for CWS Stage IV, Phase II
• Nowhere in the site could I find a realistic estimate of the projected need for water supply for Bangalore city is in the next say 5 years ?
• The trend on per capita consumption of water is again confusing – Read this from the BWSSB website: It says that in the year 2000 – 2001, the total receipt of water was around 247 million litres per day, of which only about 164 million litres was actually available for consumption (that’s about 33% as wastage)
• Additionally, the consumption pattern of the available water supply was 53% domestic, 13% Non Domestic, and 33% was towards public fountains!!! What exactly do they mean by public fountains, does it also include parks – becos I don’t believe we have so many public fountains in Bangalore that will take up about 33% of the entire water supply of Bangalore city.

Assuming that the site was last updated in 2001 – it states that “The per capita water supply at present in Bangalore is about 100 to 125 (gross) liters per capital per day (LPCD) which is below the National Standard of 150-200 LPCD for a city of the size of Bangalore. However, the per capita availability of water for vast majority of poor people in Bangalore is only about 40-45 LPCD. With 150 LPCD as standard, the current demand is 900 MLD for a population of 6 million.However BWSSB is able to supply only about 810 MLD”.

Some latest reports in TOI however state that BWSSB is supplying about 910 MLD per day, which dips to 700 MLD / 800 MLD in summer. Clearly BWSSB does not believe in keeping its website up to date.

(However, there is another page in the same site (dubiously called “Services in urban poor”), where the population of Bangalore is stated as 60 million, but that is another matter)

Skype Meeting - Launch BWSSB/Lakes tracking project

We have waited long enough for more people to show interest and join. Let us get started. A meeting with BWSSB should happen soon. Before that, let us meet in this "quick and easy" online way to talk what we will do and list first set of tasks.

Time: Monday, 4th May, 9 PM (so that we are all back home from work)

Venue: Skype teleconference

Hope that key guys like Zenrainman and Rithesh can make it. More the merrier. Those who want to join, please leave a comment, and send me a private message with your skype id. I will initiate the conference at 9 PM on Monday

We expect BWSSB/Lakes engagement/tracking projects to involve meetings, RTIs and a few site visits.

PS: I have done Skype conf calls with upto 10 people without much problem.