The Board has been charging a fine on those flats that obtain water connection without producing OC. With the penalty hurting a large number of residents, the issue was raised at a special council meeting of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to which BWSSB Chairman Tushar Girinath was invited.
"According to Karnataka Municipal Act, we are supposed to give OCs for residential spaces with more than five kitchens, irrespective of the floor on which they are located," BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said. "OCs is given for commercial spaces when they are bigger than 300 sq meters."
Following the clarification, Girinath assured that the BWSSB will seek OCs only for those residential and commercial spaces falling within the mentioned stipulation and will not penalize other flats and apartment complexes.
However, at the special council meeting presided over by Girinath, the BWSSB had made it clear that it will not withdraw its stipulation for apartments to install retrospective Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs).
"We are already working on treating sewage water at many places by installing STPs near lakes," Girinath told the meeting.
"We are once again laying pipes to connect apartments with STPs, for which we may have to dig the roads about 20 or 25 kilometres. There would be duel piping system (separately) for supplying drinking water and to treat sewage," he added.
Moreover, the order to install STPs in the apartments has been made by the central government (to all the states) in 2006, Girinath noted. "We are just abiding by that order," the BWSSB Chairman said.