The so-called “tech hubs” of the city are reeling from water shortages. Yes, part of the crisis is a result of unplanned development. But Bengaluru's real problem: Its addiction to Cauvery water.
What’s happening in Bangalore?
Bangalore’s water shortage is so bad that even its better-off residents are suffering—hence all the media talk about a “crisis.” The reporting has mainly focused on omens of disaster such as:
- Buildings are turning off the taps during certain hours to conserve water.
- Very high-end gated communities have announced fines up to Rs 5000 for residents who don’t cut back consumption by 20%.
- Others have addressed the "grave water crisis" by telling residents to avoid “pouring water to clean the balcony area and [to] use a mop.”
- Water tankers are charging up to Rs 2000 for 12,000 litres of water.
As for the “rest”: Only a few news publications like The News Minute and The Hindu have bothered to report on the far more dire situation in less affluent areas—where people have to line up for hours for a bit of water. They can’t afford tankers—which, in any case, couldn’t be bothered to serve them. And many of the nearby villages have long been deprived of water—their groundwater is depleted by tanker companies supplying IT companies in Bangalore.
Quote to note: As The Hindu reports, less affluent areas are at the mercy of local politicians and officials at the best of times:
“The water man (who is in charge of releasing water in specific areas) acts like a king. We need to go and beg at his house for water. We pay the water board. But he doesn’t give us water unless we pay him,” says Radha S., 45. She adds that the local MLA and former councillor also target blocks that have not voted for them. In such a scenario, water tankers have become ubiquitous.
So much of this fuss is myopic, focused entirely on middle and upper class residents—ignoring the water scarcity that is now ‘normal’ for great parts of the city.
Bangalore is the worst? It is the only Indian city to star in a 2018 report listing 11 cities expected to run out of water—and a 2014 survey predicted the same. OTOH, a more reputable 2018 study published in Nature predicted Jaipur will be the city with the second-largest water deficit in the world by 2050—Jodhpur came in at #14 and Chennai at #20. What everyone agrees on: Whither goes one Indian city, the others are sure to follow. A more recent UN study predicted that India will be the country most “severely affected” by water scarcity by 2050.
This is all about bad development, right?
Yes. Bangalore offers an excellent opportunity to understand exactly what “unplanned development” looks like.
The geography: Bangalore is highly reliant on Cauvery water—but only part of the city lies in the Cauvery basin. This map by civil engineer Raj Bhagat is shows the bifurcation:
Bangalore itself is not located next to a river. So it gets drinking water from the Cauvery—that is located 90 km away and 350 metres below the city’s elevation. In other words, the water has to be pumped upwards and over a great distance:
As a result, only a part of Bangalore gets piped water from the Cauvery. This is the older, core part of the city. The outer sprawl—which is a forest of tech campuses and apartment buildings—is not connected to the river supply. This area is primarily made up of 110 villages that were added to the city in 2008. It’s the striped bit below:
Groundwater central: The striped bit is also entirely dependent on water extracted from the ground. As WELL Labs reports:
Public water supply, delivered by the BWSSB, is concentrated in central areas of the city, where the population is lower than in rapidly growing suburbs. Where public infrastructure is absent, consumers, including a majority of commercial entities, have turned to groundwater accessed through private borewells, tankers, and open wells.
This is also the area that has run out of water right now. Tech hubs like Whitefield, Electronics City, Marathahalli, Nagawara, and Bagalur are facing severe water scarcity.
About those tankers: As we noted before, tankers have been extracting groundwater from neighbouring villages to supply city residents. As a result, many of them are now facing water scarcity:
Jagadish Reddy, a social activist from Varthur, says a decade ago, their village had been the site of commercial extraction of water. Varthur had been supplying water to the entire IT corridor and beyond, including areas 15-20 km away.
“We did not realise how it would affect the village resources then. Today, the underground water table in the village has depleted extensively and water tankers have to go nearly 20 km beyond Varthur, up to Chikka Tirupati, to fetch water now,” he says.
One reason why tankers cost more is that they now have to travel greater distances for less water:
Praveen Reddy, a water tanker businessman in Marathahalli, an eastern suburb, says on average, a water tanker’s journey to the source and to the customer has gone up to 50 km from less than 30 km a year ago. “If we were taking half an hour to fill a 12,000 litre tanker from a borewell earlier, now it takes over three hours as the water has depleted… We are working under severe pressure and are unable to meet the rising demand,” he says.
Data points that matter: So let’s review why we have a water crisis:
- First: demand outstrips supply: Bangalore pumps 1,450 Million Litres per Day (MLD) of fresh water from the Cauvery river, but the city needs 2,100 MLD.
- Second: This gap of 650 MLD is filled by groundwater—which is vanishing: Of the 14,781 public borewells in the city—6,997 are dry.
- Third: Cauvery itself is running low. Its reservoirs are at 39% of their capacity—primarily due to a weak monsoon. The amount of water coming into Bangalore has dropped by 50%.
All this because the city unthinkingly added 110 villages it could not accommodate in 2008. Those villages are now home to the Silicon Valley of India—but don’t have any water. You can see the area added in the map below:
Ok, but what’s the solution? They can’t go back…
Yeah, but they also shouldn’t be doing more of the same—which is what the state government is proposing.
More Cauvery water: The Siddaramiah government has promised to execute Phase V of the Cauvery project—which will connect those 110 “villages.” The city will extract an additional 775 MLD of water from the river reservoirs to feed them—though it isn’t clear how that’s going to happen with failed monsoons and climate change. You can see the grand plan—the lines in blue—below:
Even more Cauvery water: The government has even bigger plans to corral the Cauvery. It’s called the Mekedatu dam—a Rs 90 billion (9,000 crore) project that will create a reservoir of 284,000 million cubic feet (TMC) to serve namma Bengaluru’s drinking water needs. As an added bonus, it will also generate 400 MW of hydroelectric power. Hallelujah, except for a couple teeny issues:
One: Tamil Nadu absolutely hates the idea—since it also depends on the Cauvery but is unfortunately located downstream to Karnataka. Even commencing construction on the dam will provoke a political bloodbath. Reminder: Cauvery river disputes have often turned violent in the past.
Two: It is a bit of an environmental disaster: The dam will submerge 7,862.64 acres of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and 4619.63 acres of the adjoining reserve forests. Plus this: It will also submerge stretches of the sanctuary where ancient, enormous arjuna trees stand. And this:
Karnataka forest officials, who preferred anonymity, said the Cauvery sanctuary, which is home to a number of endemic and endangered species, was also one of the key elephant corridors. The submergence of forest land would result in cutting off many wildlife and elephant migratory routes. The species that would be affected include the near-threatened grizzled giant squirrels, honey badgers, Deccan Mahseer fish and the smooth-coated otters.
Three: The project will also submerge five villages—and displace the adivasis who live in them. But no one seems as worried about them—other than activists like Medha Patkar.
Point to note: There are no Mekedatu haters in Karnataka—both the BJP and Congress heart this project. Bangalore has long been tapping into distant sources of water—since the 1970s when it first turned to the Cauvery. Why stop at that? Various governments have come up with even wilder plans:
With the threat that water would run out still looming large, authorities have since explored other possibilities. In 2016, the state government proposed to divert water from the Yettinahole river, 300 km from Bengaluru. Scientists also explored the feasibility of constructing a reservoir under the Arabian Sea, to impound that water for supply. The central government of India went a step further and considered transferring surplus water from the north flowing river Godavari into the southern Cauvery.
There is literally no limit to the lengths our governments will go to slake Bangalore’s thirst.
Yeah, seems unfair, but what’s the alternative?
Bangalore. Most experts outside government agree that the city is perfectly capable of taking care of itself:
If buildings in Bengaluru set up rainwater harvesting systems, recycled wastewater, and restored lakes to recharge the water table, the city would have enough water to meet its needs.
But the city has shown very little interest in doing any of the above.
Rainwater: Of 1.07 million houses in Bengaluru that have water connections, only around 40,242 households have implemented rainwater harvesting systems (some put the number at 200,000). This is despite laws that make it mandatory. A water-starved Bangalore has little interest in harvesting its natural bounty:
Bengaluru receives annual rainfall of 700-850 millimetres, which amounts to 15 TMC (one thousand million cubic feet) of rainwater. The city requires 18 TMC of water, which means that 70% of the water required comes from rainwater.
Others say, “Bangalore's annual rainfall alone could give the city 2,740 million litres of water a day."
Wastewater: Bangalore has more than enough wastewater treatment plants—both big and small—located in apartment complexes. To be fair, Siddaramaiah's big plans also include constructing 13 sewage treatment plants capable of treating 100 MLD of sewage water. Capacity is not a problem:
Bengaluru currently boasts 38 Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), capable of treating 1,440 mld (million litres per day), with plans to construct an additional 17, bringing the total to 55, the most any city needs. The city also has nearly 3,600 decentralised wastewater treatment plants in residential complexes and 21 STPs built by BBMP.
According to one analysis, the city produces nearly 2,000 MLD of wastewater. Of this, only 655 MLD or just 32% is being reused. The reason: there are no clear guidelines for selling this water—or to promote its sale. Most of it ends up in groundwater and lakes.
Lake water: Before the colonial sahibs came along, Bangalore had no piped water:
Records from the 6th century onwards show that successive rulers of the city invested in creating an interconnected, community-managed system of tanks and open wells. The shallow aquifers of the wells were recharged by the tanks, across an elevation gradient that harvested rainwater.
But once Bangalore discovered the Cauvery, it lost interest in its own water bodies. Of 262 lakes counted in 1961, only 81 are left. Most of them have been sacrificed to real estate. And those that remain are more likely to catch sewage than rainwater. For now, restoration of lakes and open wells has been left to small citizen and activist groups—while the government chases big dam projects.
The bottomline: According to Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, an estimated 20% of Bangalore residents depend on private tankers for drinking water. His solution is the Mekedatu dam—which is essential because:
Bengaluru’s population is increasing by 10 lakh every year, and it will become difficult for the authorities to supply drinking water to all. We will need 6.5 TMC more Cauvery water to meet the demand in Bengaluru. It will be our responsibility to provide drinking water to all.
There is not a word about restoring Bangalore’s greatest treasure—its tanks and lakes. Why look for water in your backyard when you can pipe it from hundreds of kilometres away.
Reading list
The Hindu has the best and most detailed overview of the crisis. Moneycontrol has all the important data points. The News Minute looks at how the crisis is affecting the other Bangalore. South First looks at illegal borewells and the rampant theft of groundwater. Down To Earth has more on the destruction of lakes. Scroll has a good column that lays out Bangalore’s addiction to Cauvery water. Mongabay and The Wire report on the disastrous environmental impact of the Mekedatu dam. This 2019 Mint deep dive is very good at capturing the big picture of India’s water woes.
