The problem is twofold — open and clogged drains on the one hand and severe lack of water supply on the other. Together, they create a mammoth problem, let alone a stinking one.
Adjacent to Horamavu, the residents of Ramamurthynagar have to live with a labyrinth of open drains that lead up to a main putrid drain that flows through the heart of the neighbourhood.
“The drains overflow onto the streets, especially during the rainy season. It becomes really difficult for our children to walk to school,” said Susheela, a resident. Considering that it is not a newly developed neighbourhood, there is no tangible explanation for the lack in basic infrastructure in the area.
“I have been living here for 25 years and have not seen any change. These open drains attract a huge army of mosquitoes every evening. Even stray dogs gather and we have to shoo them away,” said Indirani, a resident who has to suffer the indignity of an open drain in front of her house.
Just a road away from her, a team from the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) was seen laying an underground pipeline to ease the flow of sewerage. The engineer supervising the work explained that covering the drains is the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike's responsibility, but that the BWSSB was responsible for laying sanitary connections. “There is no underground sanitary line. If it is laid, perhaps these drains will not get clogged because the waste water can be diverted through the pipes,” said Pritam Kumar, the BWSSB engineer. Curious onlookers said that this was the first time they had seen an underground pipe being laid in the area. “The dug-up roads and stinking drains have severely affected our businesses. BBMP projects work on the basis of contracts. Most of the time, there is poor coordination between contractors. For example, if one part of the road is ready, the other section may not be done up soon because it is the prerogative of another contractor,” reasoned Shantaram, the owner of a shop near the Shaneeshwara Temple. But this is just one leg of the entire problem.
The parched suburb fears the approaching summer.
Dried up
“We have had no water since the time we came here. There is a water connection but no water flows through it. They say water has dried up. We cannot dig borewells because the area is rocky, making it difficult to sink a borewell ,” said Parvathamma, a resident, who barely managed to wash vessels that afternoon with the water she stored over the week.
Worried that the situation is only growing worse as it gets hotter, Parvathamma and others are looking at different sources of water. “The corporation tankers come once in three days and each household manages to get 10 pots of water. But that is barely enough,” she added. Similar concerns have Kumari, another resident, worried because even if she were to get water from elsewhere, the kutcha roads make it difficult to carry the water. “We can't even use a cycle to carry the pots of water because of the poor condition of the roads,” she said.
Cradling her child, she looks woeful when she says, “With a stinking drain, poor roads and no water, the torrid summer is going to be difficult to get through.”
