CRYING FOR ATTENTION: The water filtering plant at the Hongalli pumping station.

MYSORE: It is official. The city will face a water crisis yet again during summer owing to the faulty machinery at the Hongalli pumping station near the Krishnaraja Sagar Reservoir.

This came to the fore when Mysore City Corporation Commissioner Chandrashekar and Krishnaraja MLA M.K. Somashekar visited the Hongalli station to apprise themselves of the situation and resolve the problem.

The team was told by officials of the Vani Vilas Waterworks that the water crisis will continue to grip the city till December by when the second stage of the Melapura waterworks should be completed.

There is adequate water in the KRS and even if the pumps at Hongalli are overhauled and the Melapura waterworks were to be commissioned, there will be no improvement unless the distribution system is improved, as admitted in the past by the officials.

The MLA and the corporation Commissioner learnt that as against the claims that the city is receiving 41.5 million gallons of water a day (MGD), the actual quantum of water being supplied is roughly 34.5 MGD. Also the figures were not ascertained scientifically but are based on calculating the holding capacity of the water tanks

Mr. Somashekar criticised the officials for giving wrong information to the public and keeping them in the dark on the quantum of water being supplied to the city, only to be told that the Vani Vilas Waterworks never had a gauging station. The actual flow of water can be ascertained only on installing an ultrasonic flow meter that costs around Rs. 4.5 lakhs, they told the MLA.

Though the Vani Vilas Waterworks officials tried to blame Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation for the state of affairs, its Executive Engineer Govindaraju refuted the allegations and pointed out that power supply to the pumping station has not been disrupted. A new feeder line that will supply uninterrupted power to the pumping station will be commissioned in a few days, he added.

Replacement

Executive Engineer of the waterworks Rangaswamy said the situation will not improve unless the pumping machinery installed at the Hongalli station is replaced as they were installed in 1968 while the ones installed at Belagola are almost a century old.

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