Cauvery scheme to city’s rescue

[1]

Bengaluru: The latest Cauvery scheme could partially come to the rescue of the city threatened with a water crisis this summer.
Some of the 500 million litres of water that the  Cauvery Water Supply Scheme stage IV phase II, will bring to the city every day, could be diverted to core areas to meet their demand.
This may be possible as although the scheme is dedicated to areas that have recently been added to the BBMP, the BWSSB has received few applications from prospective consumers in these parts and has given only around 10,000 water connections. Considering the few connections in these peripheral localities, the excess water could be supplied to the core areas.
“The design of the CWSS Stage IV Phase II is such that not much  overlap is possible between the existing and new networks of supply. However,  we are going to try and divert some of the water to core areas   to meet their demand wherever possible,” said BWSSB chairman, Gaurav Gupta. 
As Bengaluru needs around 1.5 TMC of water every month, its demand  will be around 7.5 to 9 TMC water between January and June. But with the Cauvery catchment area receiving poor rainfall in October-November last year,  the city could face a shortage of water as both the Krishnaraja Sagar and Kabini reservoirs that supply it water have just about enough storage to cater to its drinking water needs as well as that of  other urban and rural areas in the basin.