Provision of water for slum dwellers
haphazard
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Slum dweller Lalita has enough water to wash clothes, but none to drink. |
By Ankita Lath
BANGALORE (Nov. 26)—A very typical sight in any slum is people lining up in front of the public tap to collect water. This is still the case with many Bangalore slums. But many are now connected to the water supply system after the Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board (BWSSB) decided to subsidize the rates at which the slums could connect to the system and allowed the slum dwellers to pay the connection fee in installments.
A huge section of the urban poor opted for this and have clean, safe Cauvery water flowing through the taps in their homes. But some chose to wait and watch, and some are unaware that they could hook up to the mains easily.
A visit to the slums near the passport office in the Koramangala area along the peripheral 80 Feet Road painted a complete different picture. There are four slum areas next to each other, and each slum has a different story about its water supply.
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| Miles to go before she can fill her pot of water |
Slum areas in context:
- L. R. Nagar (Lakshman Rao Nagar)
- EWS Colony (Economically Weaker Section Colony)
- Ambedkar Nagar
- Rajendra Nagar
Nearest landmark:
- Koramangala Passport Office
The slum dwellers get water every second day and store it in plastic drums.
Except for those in EWS Colony, homes in the slums have motors to pump water. The problem begins here. Only the first slum along the line, Rajendra Nagar, is connected to the water main and can pump Cauvery water every second day, when there is electricity to power the motors.
Muniappa, 38, who lives in a two-story house with her extended family in Rajendra Nagar, said she had no problem with water supply. Her family has a motor in their home that pumps water from the BWSSB-laid pipelines and as it is Cauvery water, they use it for drinking.
In the same village, walking along the dusty, garbage-strewn road with a dead rat here and there, I met Nabira, 17, who was washing her clothes outside her house. She shyly ran her hand through her hair when asked to explain the water situation in the slum.
“I am happy that my family does not have to think about paying the water bill as there are no meters installed, and all we need to do to get water is pay the electricity bills,” Nabira said with a smile.
Later, Ravindra Kumar, assistant executive engineer for the BWSSB’s Koramangala bloc, said he was sure at least 50 percent of the people there have meters installed but do not pay the bills.
Kumar said he was in charge of only the Rajendra Nagar slum and as he had only been in the job for a month, he had no idea about the situation in any of the other slums. The BWSSB, meanwhile, said he was the only person in charge of the slums in that area.
The residents of Ambedkar Nagar have enough water to do all their daily chores, but the water supplied to them is not Cauvery water, so it is not suitable for drinking.
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A man selling drinking water in EWS colony
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Lalita, a slum woman who washes clothes for a living, said half of whatever she earns goes to buying water. She said her family does not get drinking water in their slum so they go to the next slum (Rajendra Nagar) and buy drinking water there for a rupee a tumbler.
The fact that people are not concerned about husbanding the water they get was disturbing. In many places, I saw water pouring or dripping from broken taps.
The residents of L.R. Nagar don’t face any problem except awhen the water supplied to them smells bad. Some people in the slum think sewage gets mixed with it.
Water is not supplied to any of the 1,500 homes in EWS Colony. It is piped to the public tanks dotted around the slum. The tanks supply the residents with all the water they need, but the problem is that the water is not clean all the time.
The people there complain about getting dirty water at times, due to which many of their children fall ill.
This colony also buys drinking water when the water in the public tanks is not clean and stinks. Louis, the president of the Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Youth Social Welfare Association for EWS Colony said: “The kids fall sick when they drink the dirty water. They suffer from severe stomachache, dengue and vomiting.” He also said that at times the water that they get is “black in color.”
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