‘National Urban Water Award 2011′ is given in recognition of its excellence in urban water management. Commissioner, Y.S. Patil, and city engineer R.S. Nayak received the award from Union Minister of Urban Development Kamal Nath.

The award is a recognition for the BCC’s work in rejuvenation of 19 large and 22 small open-wells which were constructed during the British rule to increase drinking water supply to residents of the city and also for the implementation of the 24 hours water supply in 10 wards of the city.

The wells were rejuvenated with the support of Rotary Club, INDAL Aluminium Company Ltd. and social workers.

Mangalore was in No.1 position all India followed by Kolhapur, Ernakullum. (all rankings upto March 2010)

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) is a multi-donor partnership administered by the World Bank to support poor people in obtaining affordable, safe and sustainable access to water and sanitation services.

Belgaum district is on 203^rd position with a grand score of 42 which is Average.

Grand Score ranking Methodology:

Less than 25 – Below Average

26 – 49 – Average

50-74 – Above Average

Above 74 – Superior

See how the other districts performed.

The survey of the work is being done by Tata Consulting engineers a firm based in Mumbai. The officers of the Tata Consulting engineers recently met the Mayor in this regard.

Most of the pipelines will be replaced under the new project, and that the project will take at least two to three years to implement.

The citizens said that this water tariff hike was unreasonable, unaffordable, illogical, unscientific, irrational, unethical and totally unjustifiable and demanded the corporation to withdraw this “unacceptable” rates and restore previous rates with immediate effect. No one will pay their bills until and unless the bills are revised to the earlier rates.

The existing tariff, where the minimum monthly charges was Rs. 83 for a usage of 15,000 litres and an additional Rs. 5.60/1,000 litres, the residents have to pay Rs. 48 for 8,000 litres and Rs. 104 for 15,000 litres a month. Similarly, for different slabs of usages, the corporation has increased price by Rs. 21 to Rs. 1,005 a month.

So earlier if you used to pay Rs.83 now you will land up paying Rs.104 for the 15,000 litres of water. Which is a 25% increase.

Many citizens urged that they do not need 24×7 water supply and they would be happy with the two hour water supply.

The commissioner said that he had no powers to reduce the tariff. The citizens plan an agitation against this in the future.

KUWSSB was supplying water once in three days to the city barring the 24×7 wards, but even the 24×7 wards have been affected.

The annual maintenance is being carried out for pipeline repair works and patching the leakages at Hidkal.  Taking stock of this grave situation the private water suppliers are making swift money. They charged Rs. 500 for one tanker of water when the normal rate is between Rs. 350 and Rs. 400.

Hopefully, water supply would be restored by Saturday morning.

 A decision has been taken in Bangalore to extend 24/7 drinking water supply scheme to all wards of Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Gulbarga city corporations, and work on the scheme would be commence in a couple of months. Now, the scheme has been successfully implemented on a pilot basis in eight wards of three corporations and the Department has decided to cover all wards in three corporations, which would solve the water problem, in three corporations. Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board is implementing the said scheme.

 Hence, all the wards will get 24×7 water supply once the scheme is implemented. Presently only 8 wards get 24×7 water supply where as other wards get water once in two days.

Related posts: Water Tariff hiked for 24×7 wards

 Water Prices increase by a whopping 42%

For many years the government was not looking into the issues related to development and infrastructure in Belgaum. But off late the successive governments are taking a keen interest in the development of Belgaum which is mainly propelled by the influence and efforts of various organizations. Unluckily none of the politicians from Belgaum have played any role in pressurizing the government; it is the successful efforts of the Organizations that have helped.

The Belgaum City Corporation under different grants has done many road works. Funds from flood relief, 17.80 crores from SFC grant, and 14 crores from World Kannada meet, Special fund before Belgaum’s winter sessions. The main roads and other roads works have been completed. In fact some roads have been re-done before the maintenance periods got over.

The 100 crore grant is an additional grant to the BCC for overall development of Belgaum City. The Highlights of the present action plan is only on Roads, more than 90% of the grant is to be utilized for Roads and the remaining 10% for drains and electrical works.

See earlier post related to this here.

Why have they not considered other infrastructure which the city badly needs?

The market area needs multi level parking, Widening of Roads, beautification of existing parks, Amusement parks, under passes(near Court compound and elsewhere), over bridges, Bus shelters, Community Halls, etc. The development of city does not only mean building roads. We also need other infrastructure in place.

When people demand for infrastructure Corporation officials & authorities say there are no funds, but when funds are available they are misutilized for wrong purposes. How many times to do they want to build the same roads again and again?

The proposed action plan was planned by private engineers it is said. The corporation has not bothered to see if the road works proposed in this action plan are due for work or they are still in the maintenance period.

The Karnataka Rakshane Vedike is demanding to stop the tendering process and scrap the existing action plan and come up with a new comprehensive action plan which provides opportunity for:

Construction of multi level parking

 Widening of Roads

Beautification of existing parks

Amusement parks

Under passes (near Court compound and elsewhere)

Over bridges

Bus shelters

Community Halls

 Before the action plan is re proposed they should have a meeting of all organizations and take their opinion and they should have some professional urban planning firms to advice and overlook on the works.

The KRV was protesting with the same at the Corporation office, but to my surprise no one covered the news. I have no idea why this is so? I am just doing this after getting inputs from KRV and I guess what they have stated is correct, Why only roads build other infrastructure also using those 100 crores. The KRV added that the above mentioned infrastructural developments are only a few which the city needs, there could be many more.

It was also felt that the citizens of Belgaum should come together under a common platform for the development of Belgaum. All the citizens’ forums working in the city and the public at large should take keen interest in the development of the city.

I request readers to comment on this and debate heavily; after all it’s our own tax payer’s money that will be utilized here again.

The works include roads, UGD, Central Lighting works etc in Belgaum city. The works include very many roads of the city mainly roads that were not touched up during the Assembly session and those covered here again are for other works such as dividers and street lights.

See the complete Tender here.

The total cost of tenders is a whopping 9317.627 Lakhs. (This figure was gained after adding all the 31 packages)

The time limit for all the works is 9 months.

Last date for submitting application for tender forms document is 12-02-2009

Opening of Technical Bids by the Commissioner, Corporation of the City of Belgaum is on

02-03-2009 at 11.30 am or any other date will be intimated later.

I request all to go to the link above of the tender and see what kind of development work is planned for your area.

The Belgaum City Corporation on Monday, unanimously adopted a resolution to implement new tariff for water connections under the 24×7 drinking water supply scheme in the city.

The new tariff will be effective in the 10 wards only having the 24×7 water supply. 

This very blog had broken the story on 30 August 2008, http://belgaumblog.com/2008/08/water-prices-increase-by-a-whopping-42/

Opposition members, who strongly opposed the proposal, said that people were already overburdened with inflation and price rise. It was not fair on the part of the civic body to impose additional burden on them.  See this link for a complete understanding of the tariff structure already posted on this blog.

This hike in prices will be a added calamity on the poor people. All those who fall under the said 10 wards will have to pay the hiked tariff.

Official sources in the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board said here on Saturday that the Government had directed the local municipalities to fix fresh tariff for drinking water wherever the 24/7 project had been implemented.

This blog was the first put this tariff hike problem. The same has been explained in this story of The Hindu. I had posted this story as the pamphlets were being distributed all over those areas 24×7 supply exists. The proposal still needs Corporations approval & then why is that the Water board is distributing the pamphlets was a question raised by a few residents. 

See Original Story on The Hindu