Sunday, April 24, 2016 B DECCAN HERALD 5

Metro Paying heavy pricefor urbanisation P6 »

Naveen Menezes

BENGALURU: Due to inter-mittent supply in some areasand non-existent Cauverywater pipes in others parts,45% of Bengaluru dependson borewell water. Conse-quently, groundwater is be-ing exploited even in the 110villages which were added toBengaluru Bruhat Mahana-gara Palike (BBMP) in 2007.

Under I, II, III and IV stagesof Cauvery Water SupplyScheme,theBWSSBspenthun-dreds of crores to supply about1,350 million litres of water aday(MLD)tothecorearea(245sqkm)andpreviousurbanlocalbodies (330 sq km). However,residents of 110 villages (225 sqkm) spread over five zones —Dasarahalli,Rajarajeshwarina-gar,Bommanahalli,Mahadeva-puraandByatarayanpura—areat the mercy of private watersuppliers and borewells.

ExpertspointoutthataddingnewareastotheBBMPwithoutprovidingnecessaryinfrastruc-ture amounts to inviting disas-ter.Inthepast,thoughTMCar-eas were added to the Palike,they were not provided watersupply, forcing residents to digborewells.

It took almost 10 years to theBWSSB to to supply water to 2lakhhouses intheseareas.Thishas been the situation now in110 villages, where there is nowater supply.

Urbanist Ashwin Maheshsaid that this trend would only

result in excessive use ofgroundwaterbesidesencourag-ing the water tanker mafia.BWSSB has the responsibilityto provide water to all citizensbut its now limited to thosehouses with pipe connections.

The government lacks long-term vision, he said.

A former BWSSB engineerfelttheBoard’ssupplyingbarelyreacheshalfofBengaluru’spop-ulation.Besides,housesgettingCauvery water still prefer to

havetheirownborewellsduetointermittent supply.

This has resulted in highborewell water consumption,”he said.

SreenivasaReddy,directorofKarnatakaStateNatural Disas-

terMonitoringCentresaidonly10% of the groundwater in thecoreareaisrecharged.“Ifthereis900mmofraininayear,only100 mm gets recharged as thecity consists of built up area,roads and footpaths with notenough space for recharge,”hesaid.Healsosaidperipheralar-easwereoverexploitingground-water due lack of water supply.

Whileittooknineyearstosetup water and sanitary infra-structureinTMCareas,itwouldtake at least 3 years of work inthe 110 villages. BWSSB engi-neer-in-chiefSKrishnappasaidthe board has sought financialassistance from Japan Interna-tional Co-operation Agency(JICA).

It would cost Rs 2,611.70crore to provide water supplyto these area with a sewagecomponent of Rs 1,698.04crore, he said.DH News Service

Almost half of Bengalurudependsonborewellwater

n Present supply from Cau-very: 1,350 MLDn Present population served:8.5 millionn Area of water supplyserved: 570 sq kmn House service connections:8.65 lakhn Total length of water pipes:8,746 kmn Public taps providing freewater: 7,477n Water tankers: 62n Average cost of water:Rs 28/kilolitre

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Water works

PARCHED: Bengaluru gets 1,350 million litres of water per day under Cauvery I, II, III and IVstage. But that is not proving sufficient , hence the dependence on borewells. DH FILE PHOTO

BENGALURU, DHNS: AJapan-based staffing firmon Saturday met Higher Ed-ucation Minister T B Jay-achandra with a proposal torecruit engineers, especiallyin the sectors of informationtechnology and computerscience, from various col-leges in Karnataka.

The company, Silver PeakConsultancy Service, is on thelookout for engineers from In-dia and Vietnam. The firmstates that there is a demandfor 40,000 engineers in Japanduring the next three to fiveyears. There is also a huge de-mand for nurses, especially ingeriatric care.

However, to get a visa towork in Japan, basic knowl-edge of the Japanese languageis mandatory.

Speaking to reporters aftermeeting representatives of thefirm at his office in the VidhanaSoudha, Jayachandra said thecompany had also come for-

ward to conduct training class-es inJapanesefortheaspirants.

Jayachandra said the pro-posal of the firm would beplaced before the KarnatakaState Higher Education Coun-cil meeting scheduled to beheld in Bengaluru on May 3.Vice chancellors of various uni-versities will attend the meet-ing and representatives of thefirm will make a presentationbefore them.

President of Silver Peak,Subha Bhattachan, said whileJapan was self-sufficient as faras engineers in the sectors ofmechanical, telecommunica-tion and electrical, the countryfacedashortageofInformationTechnologyand Computer Sci-ence engineers.

Bengaluru is known as theIT hub of India and hence theirvisit to the city.

He said the company had al-ready paid visits to various col-leges in the state, the Visves-varaya Technological

University campus and was im-pressed by the infrastructureand the quality of education.

Bhattachan said Japan hadrelaxed its visa norms for Indi-ans. If proper documents weremade available, a visa to Japancan be procured within threedays. However, N5 level (un-derstanding of basic Japanese)is mandatory. The Japaneselanguage proficiency test hasfive levels – N1 to N5 with N5being the easiest.

He said once a candidateclearedN5inIndia,other levelscould be studied and cleared inJapan. On an average, an engi-neer in Japan gets a minimumsalary of Rs 2.5 lakh permonth, but the cost of living isalso high. However, there is alot of scope for savings, he said.

With Japan having a largepopulation of senior citizens,there is a requirement of fourlakh nurses, he said. There isalso demand for mechanics,plumbers and welders.

Japanese firm seeks to recruitIT engineers from KarnatakaCorepsmeetministerwithproposal

BENGALURU: A panel headedbyaretiredhighcourtjudgewilllookintotheirregularitiesintheBruhatBengaluruMahanagaraPalike as pointed out by theKataria Committee, BengaluruDevelopment Minister K JGeorge said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters inBengaluru, George said thepanel will also have three re-tired engineers and will act asa factfinding team to look intoall legal and technical aspectsmentioned in the KatariaCom-mittee report.

A committee headed by IASofficerRajendraKumarKatariathatprobedlapsesintheBBMPsince 2008 had found severalirregularitiesintheareasofsol-id waste management, allot-ment of work codes for civilwork, advertisements, transferof khatas, repayment of loans,among others.

The panel headed by the re-tired judge will also look intothe multi-crore fake bill scamin the Assembly constituenciesof Malleswaram, Gandhinagarand RR Nagar. Based on therecommendation of the panel,the state government will de-cide its next step of action,George said.

On Chief Minister Siddara-maiah’s statement on Fridayregarding the bifurcation ofBengaluru, George said it wasthe party’s stand that the state

capital be split for better ad-ministration and governance.However, the bill passed by thelegislature to split Bengaluruwas pending before thePresident.

‘Coalition stable’Replyingtoqueries,GeorgesaidtheCongress-JD(S) coalitioninthe BBMP was stable. A fewJD(S) members had expressedtheir unhappiness about thecoalition soon after the BBMPbudget presentation.

TheministerdeniedthatIASofficer Kumar Naik had beenabruptly shunted out as BBMPCommissioner and stated thathis was a routine administra-tive transfer.

On the charges of irregular-ities in the purchase of bedsand blankets by the newly ap-pointed BBMP CommissionerManjunath Prasad, when hewas the Social Welfare depart-ment secretary, George said hewas an efficient officer. One isnot guilty until charges areproved, the minister said.

George said it was the BJPregimethathadeffectedasteephike in property taxes and theparty was responsible for thegarbage crisis.

The maladministration dur-ing the five years of BJP rulewas being set right by the Con-gress, George said.DH News Service

‘Retired HC judge to probeirregularities in BBMP’

BENGALURU: The CriminalInvestigation Department(CID) officers have warned pri-vate college managementsagainst falling prey to black-mailers trying to fleece the col-leges raided by the police inconnection with the pre-uni-versity question paper leak.

The CID police raided 11 pri-vate colleges on April 11.

Blackmailers, sources said,were approaching the man-agements of colleges demand-ing money with an assurancethat the charges levelledagainst them would bedropped. They also contactedthe managements of other col-leges and threatened themwith raids by the CID, ifthey did not pay up, thesources said.

The CID has requested thepublic to share information, ifany, on such miscreants, whichwould be treated as “highlyconfidential”.

The public may share infor-mation through phone:9480800123, or on the website- alertcid@ksp.gov.in. Com-plaints could be also lodgedwith the Anti-CorruptionBureau at Khanija Bhavan inBengaluru.DH News Service

Bewareofblackmailers,CIDwarnscolleges

BENGALURU, DHNS: The termof more than 14,000 govern-ment degree college guest lec-turers ended on Saturday.There, however, is uncertaintyover the government continu-ing their services.

Karnataka has 411 govern-ment first grade colleges with4,800 lecturers and 14,531guest faculty. With the govern-ment set to recruit lecturers,the guest faculty now fear fortheir jobs.

Attemptsbytheguestlectur-ers to meet Higher EducationMinister T B Jayachandra didnotyieldanyresult. Meanwhile,principals of various collegeshave requested guest lecturersto continue their services. “Wehaverequestedthegovernmentto continue the services of allthe guest lecturers and havesoughtanincreaseofRs25,000in their salaries. However thegovernment has not respond-ed,” said N Srinivasachar, Pres-ident, Karnataka State FirstGrade Colleges Guest Lectur-ers’Association.

He said that in Kerala, theguest lecturers were paid Rs22,000 while in Harayana theywere getting Rs 25,000. But inKarnataka, they are paid Rs9,500.“Eventhemeagresalaryhad not been paid for the lastthree months,”he added.

The process to recruit 2,180permanent lecturers has al-ready been set in motion. Thegovernmenthasnotregularisedthe services of guest lecturerswhohaveworkedformorethan10 years. If the government fillsup vacancies, around 4500 lec-turers might loose their jobs.

Withtheirtermover,guestlectures’fatehangsinbalance

‘21 grace marks for II PUMaths mere rumour’BENGALURU: Reports aboutthe 21 marks to be given asgrace marks for the tough IIPU Mathematics question pa-per are nothing but mere “ru-mours,” Ajay Seth, principalsecretary, Department of Pri-mary and Secondary Educa-tion, has said.

Despite a clarification by topgovernmentofficials,confusionover the allocation of gracemarkspersists as evaluators in-sist that the extra marks arebound to be allocated. A lec-turer said, “All those involvedin the evaluation of the Mathsquestion papers aretightlipped. Although 21 marksmay not be given, a few markswill be given as per the instruc-tion that has been given.”

Due to many complaintsaboutaverytoughMathematicspaper, the PU departmentformed a committee of expertsto go into the complaints. The

panelconcludedthatnoneofthequestions was out of syllabus.

SethsaidthattheMathemat-ics paper was examined notonly once, but twice. In bothcases, it was found that thequestions were not out of syl-labus. “So, talk about gracemarks does not arise. No doubtsome of the questions were noteasy and were application-based.However,21marksbeinggiven is not true and amountsto mischief,”Seth said.

At a press conference on Fri-day, Minister for Primary andSecondary Education Kim-mane Ratnakar had said that asecond committee would beformed to look into the com-plaints. When questioned inthis regard, Ramegowda, Di-rector of the Department ofPre-University Education, sadthat he had no informationabout the second committee.DH News Service

BENGALURU,DHNS: TheHighCourt on Saturday reserved itsorder on a petition seeking di-rections to cancel JosephChacko’s bail and to initiatecriminal proceedings againsthim. Chacko is accused ofcheatingNRIsandthestatehasfiled a criminal petition on be-half of NRIs.

Chacko, also an NRI, is ac-cused of duping hundreds ofNRIs settled in the Middle East,promisingthemresidentialsites.He had sold many sites to themwith bogus khatas since 1994.Chacko is estimated to haveswindledRs500crorebyform-

ing more than 25 layouts in andaround KR Puram. He had ob-tainedgeneralpowerofattorneyfrom land owners and formedlayouts in greenbelt areas with-out obtaining any statutoryclearances from authorities.More than 200 complaints hadbeen registered against ChackoinvariouspolicestationsinBen-galuru and the CID haschargesheeted him in about 85cases. The proposal of settle-ment between the victims andChackofailedafterthecourtandthe NRIs rejected to accept themoney offered by the latter asinterest on their investment.

Cancellation of NRI’sbail: HC reserves orders