BWSSB plans new divisions for water and sewage issues

In view of all-round growth of the city, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) plans to create three new divisions as part of its proposed Structural Re-organisation. The proposed new divisions are: New Initiative and Design Cell, Public Outreach and Consumer Feedback Division and Revenue Improvement Division. Each department will be headed by executive engineer (EE).

According to sources, “The New Initiative Division will visit around the country to study how other metros are supplying water and managing sewage.

The division, which will be headed by EE, will have three assistant executive engineers and six assistant and junior engineers. The team will be comparing means followed in other metros and try to replicate here in order to improve functioning of the board”.

“The team is expected to come up with new ideas and initiatives keeping the increasing population in mind. For example, they can come up with ideas to avert the possibilities of famine, match the demand for drinking water as per projections, introduce water-less toilets, water conservation taps, supply tertiary treated water in another pipeline etc,”  sources said.

Also under the Public Outreach and Consumer Feedback department, the board will conduct seminars, presentations, awareness programmes at school, college levels and at public places, explaining the expenditure in bringing water from the Cauvery river and supplying it to the people. These programmes are aimed at explaining how precious water is, so that people use it responsibly.

“This division works along with people and NGOs. Get ideas and inputs from them to improve the supply and betterment,” sources noted.

The revenue improvement department will get the PIDs from Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, match it with the number of connections the board has given through its RR numbers. It will regularise the connections, collect the arrears and other data which will improve the revenue of the board.

“The revenue of the board is about Rs 40 crore per month. Measures will be taken to improve it, by regularising connections, giving new connections, bringing unaccounted water in account etc,”  source said.