The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) is grappling with public resentment in parts of the city due to erratic water supply, following which a few staff have been manhandled.
There have been instances of people taking law into their hands and managing the valve to release water to their respective areas which has been viewed seriously by the authorities.
Krishne Gowda, a valve man, was roughed up by a person following which the corporation has lodged a police complaint in Nazarbad. Corporation commissioner C.G. Betsurmath said the valve man survived because he was astride a two-wheeler and was wearing a helmet.
The commissioner cautioned the public against taking law into their hands as it amounted to preventing a government employee from discharging his duty, which was an offence under the law. “There have been incidents of such attacks on MCC staff besides illegal operation of valves by a few persons who want to divert water to their locality and this will be viewed seriously,” said Mr. Betsurmath.
Commenting on the drinking water situation in the city, the commissioner said there was problem with power supply and an outage of 10 minutes would stall the pumps and the motors would have to run for at least three hours before water could be pumped again, which was affecting distribution in parts of the city. In addition, there were local hiccups as the MCC had taken up works to link borewells with the main line to cope with emergencies.
“So far, 60 borewells have been linked to the main line and the MCC intends to link 200 borewells so as to mitigate water scarcity during emergencies,” Mr. Betsurmath said.
But the city was comfortably placed as far as water at source was concerned, he said. Against a requirement of about 215 million litres of water per day (mld), about 248.95 mld was being pumped into the city as on Monday. In case of water problems, the public has been asked to contact the Executive Engineer Keshav on 9449841076.
