Water crisis looms over Bangalore

Water crisis looms over Bangalore

Alladi Jayasri

Water management is fragmented at present

# Policy on water is loaded in favour of irrigation and industry
# Drinking water figures way down on the list of priorities

BANGALORE: For the best part of this decade, Bangalore has learnt to sleep when the U.S. does, reinforcing its identity as India's information technology capital and a cosmopolitan melting pot.

During this decade of transformation, a debilitating environmental crisis, once thought to be in the realm of the imagination, has gripped this once air-conditioned city of lakes.

Bangalore is in the throes of a severe water crisis that appears to have shaken even our laidback policymakers. At the initiative of Legislative Council Chairman B.K. Chandrashekar, a three-day conference on the State's water crisis was organised a fortnight ago. It focussed on the urgent need for legislation to regulate and control groundwater exploitation and to separate drinking water from irrigation and industrial requirements.

No water security

The distressing theme running through the conference was how Bangalore, and indeed the rest of Karnataka, has no water security to speak of, and any policy relating to water is heavily loaded in favour of irrigation and industry. Drinking water figures way down on the list of priorities.

As we observe another World Environment Day on June 5, the question before this burgeoning city is: What is the outlook for Bangalore for the next ten years in respect of drinking water?

Unique problem

The city's drinking water supply is 860 million litres a day. With a population of 65 lakh, which is expected to cross 73 lakh by 2011, Bangalore's problem is unique — it receives water mainly from the Cauvery (95 per cent of the requirement) and to a lesser extent from Hesaraghatta and Thippagondanahalli reservoirs on the Arkavathy. Water is drawn from the Netkal balancing reservoir, treated at Torekadinahalli and pumped to the city — a distance of 95 km.

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has to pay nearly 60 per cent of its revenue to the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) for pumping nearly 800 million litres of water every day into the city. With the 5th phase of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme, the volume of water will increase by 500 million litres a day. The operational cost works out to around Rs. 18 a kilolitre at present and will rise to Rs. 28 a kilolitre in the future, according to the BWSSB.

Plan needed

All this imposes upon policymakers the need to evolve an integrated plan for sustainable management of this precious natural resource. Water management is at present fragmented. For example, lakes and tanks are mainly with the Lake Development Authority, whereas there is no single agency to regulate groundwater exploitation. There is no regulation by any agency of the 1,20,000 borewells in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike limits.

As S. Vishwanath, who heads a Web-based advocacy group for water management says, "We have the Comprehensive Development Plan for the city, but we quickly need a Comprehensive Water Use Plan."