There is huge variation in how Bengalureans source water and how much we pay for it. Older parts of the city get piped supply from BWSSB, supplemented by individual borewells, while the periphery is largely dependent on borewells and private tanker water supply.
While BWSSB charges per kilolitre range from Rs 7 (for individual residences) to Rs 22 (for apartments), private suppliers can charge anywhere upwards of Rs 100 a KL.
To get a better sense of the city’s water situation, we are conducting a survey on where you are sourcing water from, and what you are paying for it.
Open City, Biome and Citizen Matters is doing this joint survey – please do share your inputs. Please note that the data will be anonymised – only non-personal information such as the name of neighbourhood and the cost of water will be shared publicly.
(SHORT LINK http://bit.ly/blrwatersupply)
We are also asking if you have recharge wells and open wells, as Biome will use this information to develop a deeper understanding of urban groundwater.
Biome’s Open Well Mapping Project
The Open Well Mapping exercise is part of Biome’s campaign ‘A Million Recharge Wells’, which encourages Bengalureans to look at rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge mechanisms. The concept is that one million wells in Bengaluru, each with capacity of at least 4000 litres, will allow recharge of up to four billion litres of water into the ground every time it rains.
The well mapping project is aimed at understanding aquifers (water-bearing formations) below the ground — where groundwater resides, how it flows, how much of it is there, what the connections are between our lakes and borewells.
Shubha Ramachandran of Biome says, “We can understand all of these if we share stories and information about our wells, borewells, how we use our water and how we throw our wastewater. Our individual stories are small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When we put all of it together – with the help of hydrogeology, the science of groundwater – we get a complete picture of our aquifer.”
Biome has mapped around 500 wells in Bengaluru for the Open Well Mapping Project and the target is to map at least 1000 wells by this month end.
We have an open well in our house which is always dry and used to collect rain water under rain water harvesting scheme. BWSSB is collecting Rs100/- permonth under Charges for bore well. When we drew the attention of the authorities, we are told open well also comes under “bore well” and to be charged.
Could someone clarify the reason for including open well under the category of bore well.