Drinking water connection of over 30 houses disconnected at Alanahalli

• Residents shocked on getting bills ranging from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 1 lakh
• To stage protest if elected representatives fail to resolve the issue soon

Mysore/Mysuru: Drinking water connections of over 30 houses at Alanahalli village has been disconnected causing a lot of problems to the residents, who are now fetching drinking water from other places.

The water connections were disconnected as the villagers had not paid the bills and the villagers had not paid the bills as they had received bills ranging from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 1 lakh.

Since about 20 years, Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has been supplying drinking water to every house at Alanahalli village and issue water bills every month. But all of a sudden, the MCC has issued exorbitant bills and the shocked villagers, unable to pay such high bills are now a worried lot.

Villagers Hemavathi, Mahesh, Basavaraju, Mayura, L. Mahadevaswamy and G. Mahesh, speaking on Star of Mysore, said that in 20 years, Alanahalli village is getting good drinking water supply since the last two years.

“Earlier, drinking water was being supplied for one or two days in a week. We had suffered then for drinking water and now we are finding it difficult to pay huge bills. If the bill was for Rs. 10,000 or Rs. 15,000, we could have somehow arranged for the money, but how can we pay lakhs of rupees at once?” they said.

Inefficient elected representatives: Alanahalli village comes under Chamundeshwari and Krishnaraja (KR) Constituencies. The MLAs of both Constituencies have not bothered to visit the village till now to listen to the grievances of the people who had voted them to power. “If we call them, they say that they are busy. Now, water connection to more than 30 houses has been cut. Every day, MCC staff come for inspection and are disconnecting water connections. If this continues, where should we go to fetch drinking water?” the villagers said and warned of launching a protest if elected representatives do not solve the issue.

There are more than 2,000 people living in more than 600 houses in the village, who depend on MCC for drinking water, the villagers said and added that though the village is close to the city, it lacked basic facilities and even roads and drains are damaged.