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Karnataka Today newsletter: High political drama as five Congress legislators threaten to resign, and more

High political drama prevailed in the State Secretariat on March 27 in Karnataka as five Congress legislators, including three MLAs and two MLCs from Kolar district, threatened to tender their resignations to the membership of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, respectively, opposing the candidature of Food and Civil Supplies Minister K.H. Muniyappa’s son-in-law Chikka Peddanna in the Kolar (SC) Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress has not yet announced its candidate from Kolar.

The five legislators reached the Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday noon to tender their resignations. However, all of them put their resignations on hold following assurance from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who were not in Bengaluru at the time, that they would come to the city to discuss and resolve the issue by fielding a consensus candidate in the Kolar constituency.

Karnataka government has provided relief to apartment communities in areas with Under Ground Drainage (UGD) lines, essentially the core city, by amending rules for in-situ Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs). Henceforth, only those apartment complexes with over 120 units and producing over 80 Kilo Litres per Day (KLD) of sewage have to install an in-situ STP. 

At present, an STP is mandatory for projects above 50 units. But, smaller STPs are capital intensive and inefficient. The Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF) has lobbied hard for this amendment .However, in areas that are yet to be serviced by UGD lines, in-situ STP is mandatory for all projects with over 20 units. 

Amidst a severe water crises, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has called a tender to implement Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) projects in Bengaluru to ensure that the rain falling on Namma Metro’s elevated concrete tracks is used to recharge the groundwater table.

BMRCL officials said that the tender has been called to dig RWH pits below the viaduct along the metro alignment of Line 1 (Purple Line) and Line 2 (Green Line), and stations. At present, the metro spans 73.75 km and includes 65 stations in Bengaluru, of which 65.01 km is an elevated structure with the potential to harvest rain water.

Teachers are up in arms against an order issued by the Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB), which has allotted less than a week for the evaluation of around 1.66 crore answer sheets of classes 5, 8 and 9 board examination (Summative Assessment-2).