Offices of the Chief Engineer (CE) of the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board (KUWSDB) in Kalaburagi and Mysore cities have been sanctioned by the government, thereby aiding early financial approval and technical sanctions for new projects of the KUWSDB, as well as effective monitoring of ongoing projects.
K. Krishnamurthy, Chief Engineer of the KUWSDB, who took charge in the newly-created CE office in Kalaburagi, said that the office would have jurisdiction over KUWSDB projects taken up in Ballari, Bidar, Kalaburagi, Koppal, Raichur and Yadgir districts. These districts were earlier under the control of the Chief Engineer’s office in Dharwad.
He said executive engineers and assistant executive engineers working in the districts coming under the jurisdiction of the new CE office have been instructed to complete drinking water and underground drainage projects in a time-bound manner. He he would be convening a meeting of contractors who had taken up long-pending projects to ascertain the cause of the delay.
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About the underground drainage system (UGD) in Kalaburagi city and untreated sewage water mixing with Bhima river, Mr. Krishnamurthy said that he had visited some of the localities where the UGD lines were in a “woeful condition”. He also admitted that in many points, sewage water overflowing on the roads was posing a health hazard. Instructions have been issued to KUWSDB officials to transport sewage water in these localities in pipelines instead of by open drainage, he said.
He said that the oxidisation plant on the outskirts of the city, which partly treats sewage water generated in Kalaburagi city, was in bad shape. To a question, Mr. Krishnamurthy said that a proposal for taking up new water supply and underground drainage projects and strengthening existing projects at an estimated cost of Rs. 874 crore would be submitted to the KUWSDB, before approaching the State government for funding. Some of the new projects include drinking water and UGD projects at Chincholi town at a cost of Rs. 103 crore, and water supply projects at Afsalpur in Kalaburagi city, Surpur and Shahapur in Yadgir district, and Humnabad and Chitaguptta at Bidar.