Bengaluru: While the city is going through a scorching summer and facing water shortage, it is taking a heavy toll on the trees located in 1,145 parks. Nearly 270 borewells, out of 950, which were meant to supply water to these parks have dried up. BBMP officials maintain they are now paying private water tankers operators to supply water in these parks. But, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) officials have blamed the BBMP officials of ignoring many of their proposals. They claim they were ready to supply treated water to the parks, but BBMP officials were cool to the proposal.
A BWSSB top official also told Deccan Chronicle that the proposal to supply treated water to the parks have been pending for long. But BBMP official have not bothered to respond.
Thousands of litres of treated water goes down the drain. While it may not be possible to supply water to the parks by laying pipes, they can be supplied through tankers. But BBMP officials have not done anything to take this proposal forward, the official said.
Secondly, they point out that the proposal to implement rainwater harvesting at the BBMP parks is yet to be implemented.
The BWSSB official noted that BBMP parks, which are spread over acres of land, have potential to harvest thousands of litres of rain water. This can be used for all non-potable needs in parks, including flushing toilets located on park premises.
A BBMP official, however, said he was not aware of BWSSB’s proposal to supply treated water to parks. "As we all are busy with elections, we are not in a position to look at any proposals until the elections are over."
But he added that the idea of implementing RWH was mentioned in the budget, but it has not yet begun.
