Bangalore:More initiatives

A Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) blueprint on a four-phase project to recycle water from the city’s lakes was presented to Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa .The first phase — the Vrishabhavathi valley scheme — has been approved under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JN-NURM). Under the project, water will be taken from Vrishabhavathi, treated, made potable and let into the TG Halli reservoir and pumped into the city. The Rs-473 crore project is estimated to yield 135 MLD.The second project — tapping sources in Nagawara, Kalkere, Bellandur, Kengeri and K R Pura — is tipped to yield 270 MLD. The third and fourth projects — covering the Koramangala and Challaghatta valleys, apart from Agaram, Puttenahalli and other lakes — are expected to yield 520 MLD. The total yield will be 925 MLD, at a combined budget of Rs 2,533 crore. The BWSSB expects the projects to address the demandsupply gap in Bangalore. It’s estimated that the shortfall in supply in BBMP areas will increase from the present 349 MLD to 702 MLD in 2015.The projects are expected to reduce power costs as well as exploitation of groundwater resources.Yeddyurappa said a project to develop 17 lakes at a cost of Rs 189 crore, under JN-NURM, has also been cleared.
The government has initiated two corridors in Bangalore to ease traffic bottlenecks. A north-south elevated corridor from Hebbal to Madivala (16 km) and from Kodihalli to Kundanahalli (12 km) were proposed. IEDB made the proposal for the N-S corridor under the Swiss Challenge Method. The possibilities of having the corridor on two levels (rail over road) are also being explored.
The government formally handed over work on the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) to the BDA. The move to entrust the project to the NHAI was reconsidered after “differences’’ between BDA and NHAI.Meanwhile, the BDA would float a global tender for building the first phase (65 kms) of a 115-km peripheral ring road, aimed at decongesting Bangalore, in the next three months.