Bangalore water crisis, the big hoodwink

A fortnight ago, a news report ascribed the above assurance from the BWSSB and the government. Nothing can be far from truth. Bangalore is facing a water calamity. The facts are given below.

Gap between demand and supply will only increase
At the 4% population growth rate of Bangalore over the past 50 years, the population of Bangalore living in the 772 km2 area of the present BBMP will increase from 85 lakh in 2011 to one crore by 2016. With Hessarghatta gone and Tippegondahanally drying up, the only reliable water supply to Bangalore is from Cauvery with a gross of 1,410 million litres a day (MLD). There is no way of increasing the drawal from Cauvery as the allocation by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal for the entire urban and rural population in Cauvery Basin in Karnataka is only 8.75 TMC ft. As one TMC (thousand million cubic)  ft equals 78 MLD, Bangalore city is already drawing more water—1,400 MLD equals 18 TMC—than the allocation for the entire rural and urban population in Cauvery basin. Besides, Bangalore city falls under two basins, Cauvery and Pennaiyar basins. Only Cauvery basin area can receive Cauvery water and half of the Bangalore is outside it.

The schemes the government is proposing, namely diversion of water from West-flowing rivers such as Kanganahole, Kakkatuhole and Ethinahole, bringing water from Almatti dam etc. are flights of fantasy, contractors’ and their patrons’ dream projects and environmentalists’ nightmare.

About 43% of the water supplied by the BWSSB is non-revenue water or unaccounted-For water (UfW), of which an estimated 35% is simply leakage from supply pipes. It costs `300 crore annually in electricity charges to BWSSB currently to pump water from Cauvery.

Therefore, it spends `100 crore every year to let water underground, leading to the unintended consequence of increasing the dwindling water table. Plugging this leakage alone by such schemes as the 24/7 Supply in Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga and Belgaum will save about two-thirds (25%) of the leakage ,equivalent to 125 MLD.

At present, with nearly 500 MLD of leakage and another 150 MLD going to industries, the balance of 750 MLD for a population of one crore works out to 75 litres per capita per day. The government of India’s norm for metropolitan cities is 150 LPCD. With Bangalore’s population going up every year, the gap between supply and demand will widen with supply from Cauvery having reached the ceiling.

Borewells supplying contaminated water
There are about 312,000 borewells in Bangalore, drawing about 300 MLD. The drawal of underground water is 3.7 times more than the recharge from the city’s annual rainfall 900 mm.

This is the reason the borewells have gone deeper, up to 1,000 feet and many becoming totally dry. Moreover, the 600 lakes of Bangalore Urban district have all become sewage tanks as shown in Volume 2 of Excreta Matters by Centre for Science & Environment, Delhi, 2011, a study of 71 cities in India. The sewage contaminates the ground water and percolates into the borewells. According to the laboratory results of the Public Health Institute and the department of mines & geology, GoK, 52% of the borewell water and 59% of tap-water in Bangalore is not potable and contain 8.4% and 19% Eschericha coli bacteria respectively. When it gets infected, E coli becomes a dire health hazard.
The problem of diseases arising out of consuming unsafe water from public taps and borewell in Bangalore is seldom highlighted.

A city dies when its lakes die
Of the original 927 lakes in Bangalore Urban district according to the revenue records, less than 200 are said to be “live” lakes. Many of them have been breached and converted into layouts, bus-stations, golf clubs, stadium, colleges, government offices, etc. The live lakes are only storing city’s sewage.

The 850 kilometres of old Raja Kaluves meant as stormwater drains to carry surplus water from higher elevation lakes to lower levels in a cascading system of natural rain water harvesting, now instead carry city’s sewage to these lakes. The existing 14 Secondary Treatment Plants, four Tertiary Treatment Plants and 10 more STPs under construction will together have a capacity to treat 1,133 MLD. However, the existing STPs hardly treat 30% of the sewage because of sewage not flowing into the STPs (but into the lakes) and the poor maintenance by the contractors to save on electricity and lack of supervision. If the STPs with huge investments already made are effectively used to treat the sewage and more are converted to TTPs, the recovered water can be re-used at least for non-potable purposes, to start with.

Unless the sewage is diverted and the Raja Kaluves are cleared of encroachment to carry surplus rainwater to the succession of lakes, all the water bodies in Bangalore will become sewage cess-pools, causing immense health hazard. Restoration of lakes done by BBMP with “soup-bowl” technology, decorative bird-islands, paved jogging paths and Chain Link Fences without attending to the primary task of diversion of sewage away from the lakes, helps only the Contractors and their patrons.

Rainwater harvesting, a joke in Bangalore
Rainwater harvesting done now for the name’s sake, covering 44,000 houses out of some 18 lakh properties, has no meaning. As only 40% of the area of Bangalore is covered by roofs, for rain water harvesting to be effective, it should be done on a geographical basis covering the entire four basins area of Bangalore as done in Singapore, a city that works. What is done in Bangalore now is only sloganeering.

Solutions
Obviously, these problems are gigantic but must be solved in an integrated and comprehensive manner if Bangalore has to survive. What the BWSSB is doing is tokenism, piece-meal, ad-hoc and on “pilot” basis. A comprehensive plan including all the above components with genuine restoration of lakes, leakage lugging, effective STPs and TTPs, rainwater harvesting and involving civil society organisations will alone solve the crisis facing Bangalore. It also requires a sizable investment. An outline for such a comprehensive plan has also been prepared by reputed consultants as shown below:
Item of work

1) Reducing leakage in 6.5 lakh connections from 30% to 15% in core area from source to house connections under maintenance contract system as in Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga and Belgaum. Estimated cost: Rs1,250 crore
2) Removal of encroachment and maintenance of 850-km-long network of SWDs and Raja kaluves with proper servicing tracks: Rs10,000 crore
3) Rejuvenation of lakes and maintenance: Rs5,000 crore
4) Segregating sewage from SWDs, optimum treatment in STPs and TTPs, new STPs and upgrading existing STPs including the major 300 MLD Vrishabavathy Valley STP and laying dual pipelines: Rs2,750 crore
5) Rainwater harvesting and other miscellaneous work: Rs5,000 crore
6) Price and physical contingencies: Rs2,000 crore
Total: Rs26,000 crore

Such a comprehensive project will take about 10 years and can be funded only with external assistance from international funding bodies such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation, which impose financial discipline in awarding contracts and certifying quality of work. Obviously, the BWSSB is not keen on such an integrated project, which requires strict financial supervision by the funding body. Truth is, in such big projects with World Bank-ADB funding, the unholy alliance of ministers, officers and contractors cannot siphon funds.

Without preparing and implementing such an integrated and comprehensive programme, any attempt to solve one component here and another there on a much popular “pilot basis”, enabling corruption, is only a futile exercise in tokenism and will not be of any use and a waste of public funds. It is more like a Thirupathi Kshavara.

The government must take responsibility of the survival of Bangalore. Otherwise, we will be overtaken by a Black Swan event of evacuating half of the city in 10 years due to water scarcity, contaminated water and disease. It has happened in history earlier, such as the abandoning of Fatehpur Sikhri and fading out of Adil Shahi’s Bijapur. History repeats itself as tragedy unless people wake up.

The author is a former additional chief secretary, Government of Karnataka.