bangalore water issues

A recent article on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website listed Bengaluru among the 11 cities that will go out of water soon. The article said: " Local officials in the southern Indian city have been bamboozled by the growth of new property developments following Bangalore's rise as a technological hub and are struggling to manage the city's water and sewage systems. To make matters worse, the city's antiquated plumbing needs an urgent upheaval; a report by the national government found that the city loses over half of its drinking water to waste. Like China, India struggles with water pollution and…

Three communities in southeast Bengaluru - Rainbow Drive, Adarsh Palm Retreat and Renuka School adjacent to Kaikondarahalli Lake, have created individualised water management plans to solve problems like water shortage, reliance on borewells and flooding. Knowledge and understanding of their groundwater system has allowed these communities to make smarter decisions when it comes to withdrawing groundwater and making the conscious effort to recharge water back into the earth. Biome Environmental Trust, ACWADAM and Mapunity with funding from Wipro Ltd. spent three years researching the water that lies beneath the surface in a research project called Participatory Aquifer Mapping (PAQM). An…

Water shortage has been a matter of serious concern in Bengaluru.  While the city contributes about 50% of the state’s GDP, this problem, if not corrected timely, could seriously threaten the revenues of the state government and the IT/BT investment that the city has been able to attract.  The population of Bengaluru is also increasing substantially. As against a population of 85 lakhs in 2011, it is expected to be around 188 lakhs by 2030, which will further exacerbate the city’s water supply woes. What’s the scenario in Bengaluru?  The piped water supplied by the Bangalore Water Supply & Sewage…

From taking water for granted, to discovering water scarcity and now managing water sustainably without depending on water tankers, our Sarjapur Road community is very different from the rest of the neighbourhood suffering from water problems. Rainbow Drive (RBD) is a gated community established in 1998-99. Till 2004, no meters in individual houses, water was supplied free. A few houses had private borewells for their own use. After the Residents' Welfare Association was formed in 2004, they started to meter the supplied water at a nominal charge to recover the operational cost. They also decided to ban the digging of…

Look at this video. Rain water—rather more of a cesspool—greenish, smelly water—collected in an open abandoned granite mine, being filled in a "Drinking Water" tanker. The location is right next to RBD Stillwaters (next to Lakedew Lake/ Puravankara Skywoods), in Harlur near Parappana Agrahara Main Road and Kudlu Road, on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Such tankers also deliver drinking water to many residential projects including apartments. They also deliver water for upcoming constructions in the nearby areas. Banibrata Dutta, a concerned resident who lives in an apartment near Sarjapur Road, shot this video. He says: “Who knows, it could even…

Pic: Subha Priya On June 29th 2015, a performance audit on Conservation and Ecological Restoration of Lakes under the jurisdiction of Lake Development Authority (LDA) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka by the CAG of India was tabled in the Assembly. The report brought into focus many of the ignored facts about lakes in the city and the state. This 75-page-long performance audit covering the period 2009 to 2014 highlights the deterioration in ecological health of lakes as well as issues among the institutions of management and governance of lakes. This audit scrutiny covers 56 lakes selected by adopting…