Yadavagiri water reservoir roof collapses again

A portion of the roof of the Yadavagiri water reservoir collapsed on the night of 26-5-13. Till now no repairs have been done. It is not clear if Vani Vilasa Water Works even know that the roof has collapsed.  It may be remembered that a portion of the roof of the same reservoir collapsed on 26-4-11 and repair was started only after photos of the damaged roof appeared in the papers. Corrugated sheets were placed over the opening left by the roof collapse as seen in the photo. Another section of the same roof collapsed on 22-7-11 and its repair can be seen in the top right side of the circular reservoir.

MGP had complained that these repairs were a temporary solution at best. The entire roof needs to be replaced before other sections of the roof collapse causing possible loss of life. It is seen in the photo that there are white stripes painted all over the roof. It appears that these stripes are attempts to fill in cracks in the roof.  The photo shows that the roof has broken off just along these stripes indicating that there were cracks underneath the stripes. Since there are stripes all over the tank roof, it is likely that there are cracks everywhere. If the entire roof is not replaced, more and more cracks will get wider and more and more sections of the roof will collapse as it  happened in Vijayanagar Central Storage Reservoir. The collapsed section of the roof needs to be covered immediately since the water coming from KRS still has a lot of sediment even after filtering and with sunlight streaming into the reservoir through the collapsed roof, there will be an explosion of algae population. This will in turn breed dangerous bacteria. Also, as it happened when the roof of the Vijayanagar CRS collapsed, pigeons will start nesting inside the reservoir and we will soon have dead pigeons in the water being supplied as drinking water to Mysoreans.

Dwarkanath Narayan, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

(Earlier reports on Yadavagiri water reservoir 1, 2, 3)

Needless harassment of poor people

Countless people have obtained their ration cards by paying a fee of Rs. 60. Two months ago, the state government issued an advertisement in several leading newspapers stating that the data on cards issued before December 2010 have been destroyed and that the public who have such cards should again pay a fee of Rs. 50 and get their fingerprints taken again.

So the public is being penalized Rs. 50 for a mistake committed by the government. But it does not stop there. People who have gone to get their biometric data taken again have a whole list of complaints. First of all, they have to take all their family members along and the biometric data of all are being recorded again. Secondly, they have to take a witness who has a valid ration card (i.e., he has a card issued after December 2010 or he has gone throught this tedious procedure to get it revalidated) and this witness has to have his biometric data taken and matched with the data stored in the computer. If they do not match, a new witness has to be found. The witness has bring his Aadhaar card and the latest electric bill. If the queues are too long and if there is a power outage, the applicants are asked to come back the next day again with whole family and the witness. Where do we find witnesses who meet all these criteria and who are willing to waste a couple of days for someone else? We can not even have professional witnesses, since they have restricted persons to act as witness for only two others. The deadline for resubmission of biometric data was 31-3-13, but was extended because of elections. It is not clear what the new deadline is and people yet to revalidate their cards are in a state of high anxiety.

Why is the government yhus harassing people, that too mostly poor people?

G.L.Nagaraj Urs, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

MGP condoles Pasha's demise

MGP condoles the death of Mr. Nayeem Pasha, Assistant in the Town Planning section of Mysore City Corporation. Mr.Pasha was quite positive and helpful to public cause. He was courteous and prompt. In his demise, MCC has lost a conscientious public servant.

R Chandra Prakash, MGP

Photos from June 2013 issue of Grahaka Patrike

(B.V.Shenoy) 

MGP held a protest before Mysore City Corporation office against poor water supply. 

(B.V.Shenoy) 

Deputy Commissioner of MCC Mr. C. Raju received a petition from the protesters

(Dr.Bhamy V.Shenoy) 

After the terrible shortage of water, MCC woke up and started installing new pipes for augmenting the water supply to the city.

(Dr.Bhamy V.Shenoy) 

Since the supply from the Belagola pumphouse on Devaraya canal is unreliable, it is better to pump water directly from the riverbed upstream from the Sethikatte barrage.

 (B.V.Shenoy)

Karnataka Library Authority has installed a barbed wire fence across People's Park in Mysore.

(Dr.Bhamy V.Shenoy) 
MCC is dumping building debris in People's Park and the whole place has now become a public toilet.

Be careful about tap water

As everyone is now aware, the level of water in KRS has gone down drastically. The discussion in the media is mainly about the quantity of water and not about the quality.

As the amount of water stored in KRS goes down its pollution level goes up. Roughly the same amount of sewage gets into the water, but there is less stored water to dilute it. So the bacterial contamination of water increases. Also, as the level of water goes down,  more sunlight penetrates into the water and heats it up. Water temperatures which are normally in the lower to mid twenties start creeping upto 30 degrees. Fecal bacteria multiply very rapidly in warm water and the number of dangerous bacteria in water becomes very high. In this situation, it is not clear if the normal processing of water makes it safe. So the citizens should be careful in drinking tap water. 

Arrival of rains can make the problem worse. The first rains bring in a heavy load of organic matter to the KRS reservoir providing an additional boost to bacterial population. Therefore, the amount of organic matter and bacteria in the reservoir reach a peak during the early part of the rainy season. Tests conducted by Mysore Grahakara Parishat and Dr.Ajay Memorial Drinking Water Foundation in previous years have found that treatment by the Water Works generally fails to render the water potable till a few weeks into the rainy season.

So the citizens of Mysore would be well-advised to purify water before drinking it. They can use water purifying kits such as Aquaguard or boil water for 10-15 minutes or immerse a clean (EC grade) copper sheet in the water for 24 hours to kill the harmful bacteria (For more information on these and other methods, call MGP at 2515150). 

It is quite possible that humans constantly exposed to bacterial contamination acquire some degree of immunity against the diseases caused by these bacteria. That is probably why there is no epidemic yet in Mysore due to water contamination. But if we do not take precautionary steps, we will be flirting with danger. Contaminated water supply has resulted in localized epidemics in the last few years in Bogadi, Paduvarahalli, etc. in which people have died. It is hoped that MCC will wake up before a major disaster strikes.

Prof. A. Ramalingam, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

MGP to protest water woes

As far as water supply is concerned, Mysore is flirting with danger every year. Every summer, KRS level goes extremely low and many areas of Mysore do not get drinking water for several days at a stretch. People start getting desperate. But just before disaster, it starts raining and we are saved one more time.

But we are getting closer to tragedy every year with increasing population and increasing demand for Kaveri water for drinking, for irrigation and for industrial use. It is just good luck which has protected us till now, but one of these years luck will run out and we will have a major calamity. The water supply will stop. This should not be allowed to happen.

The sad thing is that such a calamity can be prevented or at least greatly mitigated with planning and good management, but the present setup is not geared for either. There are too many agencies, MCC, VVWW, JUSCO, KUWS&DB and Irrigation Department which have an effect on the water supply and there is no coordination between these agencies. They are all guilty of grave irresponsibility and passing the buck and every year they start digging the well only after the house is on fire. This has to stop.

To urge the government to take action on on the problem of recurring water crises, Mysore Grahakara Parishat is holding a protest before Mysore City Corporation building at 3.30 PM on Monday, 20-5-2013. It is demanding short and medium term plans to solve the problem once and for all. Among the short-term plans it is supporting is the rapid implementation of the KUWS&DB proposal to stop pumping water from Devaraya canal (because it is not a reliable source) and instead pump water from the riverbed upstream from Sethikatte. This should be done urgently and at any rate before next summer. As medium term plan, MGP is urging the formation of an expert committee to develop an action plan for the next five years to ensure water supply even under conditions more severe than this year. MGP is also urging the formation of a autonomous body to manage Mysore's water supply (and sewage) and a regulatory commission on the lines of Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission to regulate the water supply body.

Prof. B.S. Shankara, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Kudos to LIC for prompt corrective action

Two months ago, we had complained about a discriminatory policy of LIC. When you take a policy and sign your name in Kannada, LIC demands that someone else should vouch that it is your signature. This requirement is not imposed if you sign in English. We had pointed out that according to General Clauses Act, 1897, a sign is any mark that is put to authenticate a document. It need not be in any specific language and need not be in any language at all. So if a person says that the mark he is putting is his signature which authenticates the document in question, there is no need for anyone else to attest to that fact. 

We had written to the LIC head office in Mumbai to stop this needless harassment of Kannada-writing policy holders. We are happy to inform that today we received a call from the LIC office in Mysore saying that instructions have been issued to all offices to stop the discrimination and not insist on authentication of Kannada signatures. We congratulate LIC on this prompt action.

An aside. The caller said that instructions have been issued not to insist on authentication of vernacular signatures. Many people use the "vernacular language" as an equivalent to "local language", but fail to realize that "vernacular" has an offensive connotation, coming from the root "verna" meaning "local slave". So it is better to drop it and use "local" instead.

M.A.Sridhar, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Mysore's water crisis will only get worse

An MGP team consisting of Prof. R. Chandra Prakash, V. Mahesha and myself visited Hongalli water plant near KRS dam today (11-5-2013) to find first-hand what is being done to solve the worst water crisis Mysore has faced in decades. What we saw reminded us of the adage of digging a well when the house is on fire. Hongalli plant can pump 90 million liters per day (MLD) when water flows through Varuna and Right Bank Lower Level canals. But the water level in KRS is now too low to feed these canals and the plant can pump only water from the river bed. Even though there are two pumps (housed in the building shown below), only one of them is working now with a capacity of 35 MLD. However since the last two days (that is from 8-5-13), they have started installing the needed equipment (wiring and pipe line) to increase the capacity by another 15 MLD. It is surprising that the authorities did not anticipate the crisis earlier and waited this long

.  

Sethukatte is the barrage which feeds water to Devaraya Canal to Belagola from where more water (capacity 52 MLD) is pumped to Mysore. Unfortunately without informing Mysoreans it was decided to open the sluices in Sethukatte to supply water to Bangalore for the last few days. This has resulted in Belagola not getting any water. Sadly no one knows about this. It seems efforts are made now to close the sluices. In addition there is complete breakdown in law and order. Farmers are using powerful pumps to pump water before it reaches Belagola. It seems even police cannot control them. The only silver lining is that the government has released one TMC of water from Hemavathi dam and there was copious showers in Kodagu district and another TMC water may be released from Harangi reservoir. But if the water level goes below the dead storage level of 60 feet, there will be no water to Mysore from Kaveri. We will have to do with Kapini water (which serves only the southern part of Mysore) and borewells. If only they had done some scenario planning, Supreme Court could have been convinced not to release Kaveri water toTamilnadu.

Pipeline being constructed to increase the pumping capacity of the Hongalli plant. 

There seems to no planning and everyone seems to be passing the buck. VVWW puts blame on Mysore City Corporation. MCC blames Karnataka Urban Water and Drainage Board. They in turn blame either MCC or the irrigation department or both. In MCC, our elected corporators blame JUSCO or the Commissioner (who are transferred at the drop of a hat) or VVWW. Citizens blame every one excepting themselves. It is sad that Mysoreans were not given the true dimension of the crisis. We were assured that under any conceivable situation there will be no need to worry. We were even told that most areas will get water supply on alternate days. In reality, many areas have not received water in 5-10 days. We have learnt that Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board has submitted a project to install jackwells upstream from Sethukatte bypassing Belagola to supply water directly to Mysore by laying a shorter and more efficient pipeline which cannot be tampered by the farmers. This project should be implemented on a war footing before the next major water crisis hits us.

Dr.Bhamy Shenoy, MGP

Peoples Park Going Down The Drain

Despite several public demonstrations to save People's Park, it seems well on its way to ruin. For decades, the park had been encroached by  PU college, tennis club, temple, dargah, private bus stand, etc. but no one paid much attention, least of all, Mysore City Corporation and Mysore Urban Development Authority which should have protected the park. But when a few years ago MCC leased part of the park to build a public library cum commercial complex and a hundred trees were cut, the public rose up in protest and the project was quickly shelved.

But vested interests will always have an eye on such a valuable property at the centre of the city. The property was again given to the Library Authority of the state government to build a public library.

But the original lessees have filed a case in the High Court asserting their claim and hearings are going on. In the meanwhile, the Library Authority has fenced off almost one third of the park (which seems more than the land allotted to it). What is worse, debris are being dumped in this area by MCC and the area has now become a public toilet.

If the government attempts to destroy a park by constructing a building, it can be opposed in the courts quoting Sec. 6 of the Karnataka Parks, Play-fields and Open Spaces (Preservation and Regulation) Rules, 1985 and stopped. If the government attempts to destroy a park by cutting the trees, it can be opposed in the courts quoting Preservation of Trees Act, 1976 and stopped. But if the government chooses to destroy a park by building fences across it and preventing public access or by dumping debris in the park, legal remedies fail. The only way to prevent such destruction is for the public to stand up repeatedly and protest.

Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

What if no candidate is good enough?

In view of the impending elections and the lack of good candidates in some constituencies, several people have enquired about the "non-vote" under Sec. 49-O. Here are some details.

According to Sec. 49-O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, a voter has the option of not casting his vote and having the presiding officer record this fact. Sec. 49-O reads as follows:

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote: If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form 17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

The procedure is very simple. If you want to make use of Sec. 49-O, you sign in the voters register of the polling station, get the indelible ink stain on your fingernail and tell the presiding officer that he should record your non-vote. He then will record it in the "Remarks" column of the voters register (which is the same as Form 17A) and you should sign next to it. You need not press any buttons on the EVM.

Some national newspapers have reported that the Election Commission has "instructed the presiding officers to give 49-O forms to those who demand for it". But there is no 49-O form as such. No form is given to the voter. A remark made by the voters list (i.e., Form 17A) is all that is required.

Instead of having Sec. 49-O, it would have been much better if a button "None" was provided in the list of candidates on the EVM. That would have eliminated privacy and equality under law issues plaguing the present exercise of Sec. 49-O.

Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat