It is not privatisation of water supply, clarify Karnataka officials

Officials of Karnataka Urban Water supply Modernisation Project (KUWSMP) said that the entire water supply infrastructure would be handed over back to the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation after the contract period

Clarifying that handing over the water supply maintenance of Hubballi-Dharwad was in not a move towards privatisation, officials of Karnataka Urban Water supply Modernisation Project (KUWSMP) on Thursday said that the entire water supply infrastructure would be handed over back to the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) after the contract period.

Speaking at an orientation programme for presspersons regarding the 24x7 water supply project, funded by the World Bank under KUWSMP and executed by Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (KUIDFC) at Rayapur in Hubballi on Thursday, the authorities sought to clear, what they termed, some of the misconceptions among the public regarding the water supply.

Under the project it has been planned to extend the round-the-clock water supply project to all the 82 wards in the HDMC.

The 24x7 water supply project was first initiated in the twin cities back in 2006 in eight wards (four each in Hubballi and Dharwad) when there were 67 wards in all.

In 2008, the project was commissioned in the demo zones and subsequently it was extended to more wards. As of now out of the total 82 wards, 36 wards have 24x7 water supply scheme and work has begun in the remaining 46 wards under the DBOT (design, build, operate and transfer) module.

Elaborating on the project being executed by L&T in 46 wards, Superintending Engineer of KUWSMP’s Project Implementation Cell, Hubballi, M.K. Mangond clarified that the private company would only execute the work, create necessary infrastructure, maintain it for seven years, and then hand it over back to the municipal corporation.

He also clarified that the water supply tariff would be fixed by the HDMC and the private company would only have the responsibility of collection of water bills and maintenance of the system.