City: Bengaluru

The Cauvery Stage V project, once commissioned, is supposed to solve the water crisis in Bengaluru's peripheral areas. Though the project is supposed to be completed by 2023, as we saw in part 1 of this series, work on many components of the project has only just started. At the same time, many apartments in these areas have not been applying to Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) for new Cauvery water connections. In this part, we explore why. SJR Watermark apartment in Ambalipura, along Haralur main road, off Sarjapura Road, is one such apartment that hasn't applied for…

Bengaluru's peripheries - the 110 villages that were added to the city in 2008 - have long depended on private tankers for water supply. The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) had promised them water supply by 2023 through its Cauvery Stage V project. Cauvery Stage V project aims to bring in an additional 775 MLD (Million Litres per Day) water from river Cauvery into Bengaluru city. As per the final project report in 2017, the total demand for the 110 villages was calculated to be 350 MLD as of 2024. The report says demand is expected to go…

With COVID, lockdowns, unemployment, heartbreaking journeys of migrant workers back to their villages, news of illness and death making headlines every morning, this year has taken its toll on all of us. Hunkered down in our houses, distanced from family, friends and colleagues, we had few reasons for cheer. But even amid this seemingly incessant gloom, we found some inspiration from the citizen engagement and impact that we saw in several spheres. Though the government failed us consistently and abysmally, warriors among us arose to take control of the situation. Men and women across the country organized toolkits, Twitter drives…

Bengaluru’s water woes are not a secret to anyone, all thanks to the city’s water activists and environmentalists who have fought tooth and nail to promote Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) and sustainable water management in the city. Two well known names campaigning for water sustainable are Vishwanath Srikantaiah and Shubha Ramachandran, both from the Biome Environmental Trust. Vishwanath is a water activist and an urban planner. He has worked in collaboration with the local communities to revive 10,000 wells with the support of the well-diggers, and helped in the development of 100,000 recharge wells. Shubha is a water sustainability expert. She…

6,316 trees to be axed to revive lake Residents and activists are angered by the Karnataka Forest Department seeking public consultation to cut 6,316 trees. The trees are to be felled so as to rejuvenate the Singanayakanahalli lake, as part of the Hebbal-Nagawara valley project. Forest department officials say most of these trees are Jaali Mara (Prosopis Juliflora), but activists say there are Acacia and Pongame oil trees (Honge Mara) trees too. And that the habitat houses peacocks that belong to Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, along with foxes, snakes, birds and other animals. Activists point out…

In 2018, the NGO Bangalore Environment Trust (BET) filed a PIL (WP 17841 of 2018) in the High Court of Karnataka, considering the city’s deteriorating green cover. The PIL sought to implement the provisions of the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act 1976 (‘Trees Act’). This article is a brief summary of the current status of the PIL. The petitioners’ prayers to the court were as follows: The Tree authority and the Tree Officer should do their duties diligently as per Tree Act.A comprehensive Tree Census should be carried out.A public notice should be issued when the Tree Officer gets an…

“Healthcare in the city (BBMP) has been found wanting during the pandemic.” That was the first salvo fired by Deputy Chief Minister C.N Ashwath Narayan, who also heads the state’s COVID Task Force, to pin the entire blame for the failures in COVID management during the second wave on the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The second salvo was the proposal to divest the BBMP of all its public health responsibilities, including COVID management, and create a separate Bengaluru Health Directorate under the Department of Health and Family Welfare. This exposes the confused thinking of the state government. Such a…

For restaurateur Abhilash VK’s seven-year-old and four-year-old children, the idea of waking up every morning, running up to their balcony, and picking fresh strawberries from their kitchen garden has been an exciting one. Their breakfast was incomplete without them.  Abhilash, a home gardening enthusiast, plans to create an aviary to his terrace garden. Pic courtesy: Abhilash VK Abhilash started his terrace gardening project a little before the pandemic. He enlisted the service of a gardening firm to set up the garden. They took care of the soil and other infrastructure, and provide monthly service for applying fertiliser and managing pests.…

“There is no blanket figure given as daily COVID testing target,” says Rajendra Cholan, Special Commissioner (Health) at BBMP. “Testing numbers are decided based on a formula given by the state TAC (Technical Advisory Committee) for COVID”. Even as the second wave hit its peak during April-May, Bengaluru urban clocked only around 30,000-40,000 tests per day, (it was 20,000-30,000 before the start of the second wave), despite experts recommending an increase in test numbers which perhaps could have identified and isolated asymptomatic persons quicker and reduced the spread. Cholan added that it was not a question of randomly testing one…

This is a time of immense grief and loss for me. Unable to face the harsh reality of my mother gasping for each breath in the ICU, I was drowning myself in work. Coincidentally or so I think, I was working on a report analysing asphyxiation of Vrishabhavathi, Arkavathi, and Cauvery rivers, and suffocation of aquatic lifeforms the rivers supported. As the dissolved oxygen graph took shape, I realised: The million times I had held the dissolved oxygen meter underwater to measure oxygen saturation levels across rivers was no different from the million times we plugged the oximeter to my mother’s…