bangalore water supply

“Tiddalick the frog awoke one morning with a great thirst and decided to drink. He drank all the water in the rivers, the creeks, the lakes and the billabongs and there was no water left for other animals. It was only a matter of time before all the animals died.” This aboriginal children’s story from Australia might sound funny and childish. But replace Tiddalick the frog with any of the major cities in the world, and you will get a glimpse of the bleak reality we live in, where we either scramble for a drop of water, or waste it…

It is 4 pm. A man comes in a bike, parks it near the HOPCOMS shop near Mariyappanapalya Park in Rajajinagar, Bengaluru. He walks towards the water vending machine nearby with a 20 litre water can in hand, pays, fills it and leaves the spot. Just as he is leaving, we ask him what he does with the water. He says he uses it in his panipuri business. He is a street vendor whose business depends on this safe water dispensed by the vending machine, popularly known as water ATM. This water ATM was started in 2015 as a BBMP…

Gopinath P (35) grew up in extreme water scarcity, in Vijayanagar village in Bengaluru. This is an area located in Mahadevapura, a zone earmarked under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP's) 110 villages project. “My mother travelled 4.5 kms by foot often to Immadihalli village, where certain rich zamindars had built borewells owing to favourable water tables,” Gopinath says. Carrying plastic-pots attached to her waist and head, she along with many other villagers of Vijayanagar traveled to faraway villages seeking water. Tankers go every fortnight to one cross. But if the water is over, a resident who is supposed to…

It is a known fact that water tankers extract any water that they see in Bengaluru. This video is a proof of it. Come summer, water tanker business is at its peak, especially on the outskirts of the city where there is no Cauvery water supply. The business is a pleasure in the years in which there is less-than-usual rain, because demand for water is the highest. Nagaraj (name changed) is an owner of a water tanker, operating in Kammanahalli. He has been in the tanker business for 15 years now. There were virtually no rules for extraction of groundwater…

A US-based non-governmental organisation and a Bengaluru-based engineering firm have prepared a Vision Plan for restoration and regeneration of lakes in Bengaluru. The Vision plan titled ‘Better Lakes, Better Bangalore’ advocates a “sustainable water supply plan for Bangalore.” Curiously, many of the stakeholders mentioned in the report have denied involvement in preparing the report. Bengaluru-based engineering consultant firm Invicus Engineering, along with San Francisco-based non-profit organisation working towards water sustainability—Sherwood Institute and an engineering firm based in San Francisco, Carollo Engineering, had signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the BDA on November 6th 2012 to provide a Vision Plan for…

A water tanker collects water from a borewell next to Bellandur lake, whose water is contaminated according to tests by the Pollution Control Board. Pic: Meera K. The terms ‘water tankers’ and ‘water mafia’ are not new to an average Bangalorean. Neither is the knowledge that a vast part of the namma Bengaluru depends on the water they supply. Some of us like to believe the public authorities when they try to deny the existence of ‘mafia’ in managing water or garbage but their existence is a reality. Have you ever tried to understand how water mafias exercise a form…