Assuring city residents a comfortable summer with adequate drinking water, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said an allocation of Rs. 66 crore had been made to tackle drinking water scarcity here.
Replying to BJP member D.S. Veeraiah during question hour in the council, the Chief Minister explained that of these funds, East, West and South zones had been given Rs. 33 crore, while the remaining would be shared among Bommanahalli, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Rajarajeshwarinagar and Mahadevapura zones.
The funds would be used to drill new borewells. If these did not yield water, then drinking water would be supplied through tankers, he said.
According to Mr. Siddaramaiah, 7,241 borewells were drilled in Bangalore in the last five years. Of them, 1,204 had dried up.
To another query by BJP member B.J. Puttaswamy, the Chief Minister said Bangalore had 14 sewage water recycling units with total capacity of 721 million litres a day (mld).
However, only 525 mld of sewage was being treated, while the city was producing about 1,000 mld. Hence, efforts were on to set up additional recycling units to increase the capacity to 1,288 mld, he said.
