May 21, 2018
ASIA / PACIFIC
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Water mismanagement leaves India’s Silicon Valley parched
PARCHED PROBLEM. Women collect water
(top photo) at a public tap in a poor residential neigh-
borhood in Bangalore, India. India’s Silicon Valley is
bracing for yet another thirsty summer. Faucets are
running dry and the lakes that once nurtured the
southern city of Bangalore and its nearly 10 million
residents are either parched or fetid with industrial
waste and toxic effluents. In the bottom photo, a secu-
rity guard in Bangalore checks the water level of tanks
placed on top of a residential building to store water.
(AP Photos/Aijaz Rahi)
By Aijaz Rahi
The Associated Press
ANGALORE, India — India’s
Silicon Valley is bracing for yet
another thirsty summer.
Faucets are running dry and the lakes
that once nurtured the southern city of
Bangalore and its nearly 10 million
residents are either parched or fetid with
industrial waste and toxic effluents.
Much like Cape Town in South Africa,
Bangalore’s water woes have been in the
making for some time. Years of unplanned
urbanization, rapid population growth,
and poor management of water resources
have now reached a critical point in the
southern Indian metropolis.
A 2016 study by the Energy and
Wetlands Research Group at the Indian
Institute of Science in Bangalore showed
that the city’s water bodies declined by as
much as 80 percent between 1973 and
2016.
Over that same period, the concrete area
in the city, once known for its gardens and
lakes, went up by more than 1,000 percent.
T.V. Ramachandra, the scientist who led
the study, said mismanagement of both
land and water resources has led to the
current crisis, in which the city is now
critically dependent on the Cauvery river
and the annual monsoon rains as its
principal sources of drinking water.
The lakes that once provided natural
rainwater reservoirs and helped recharge
groundwater have largely given up the
fight against rampant encroachment. The
few that have survived the onslaught are
struggling.
Images of Bellandur Lake, the city’s
largest water body, covered with a foamy
mix of filth, routinely make the headlines.
Another major lake, Ulsoor, is choked
with garbage and construction waste and
is gasping under a blanket of thick
waterweeds.
And as the thirsty city looks desperately
for water, borewells are digging deeper
and deeper, each year depleting what
remains of the city’s groundwater.
Large water storage tanks line the
rooftops of Bangalore’s new commercial
and residential buildings, which are
almost entirely dependent on private
B
water suppliers.
A study recently published in a leading
environmental magazine, Down to Earth,
said Bangalore could go the Cape Town
way — and face acute water scarcity in the
not-too-distant future.
The study said the water table in
Bangalore has fallen from 10-12 meters to
76-91 meters below the surface in the last
two decades as the number of extraction
wells soared.
Mobile tankers have become the water
lifeline for the city’s poorer residents, who
line up every day to fill buckets and pots.
TRANSIT
FARE CAR
D
“There is severe crisis. The actual
sufferers are the poor people living in the
slums,” said rainwater harvesting expert
Ayyappa Masagi.
“Rich people can afford to buy water.
Poor people are spending like 2 to 5 rupees
(5 to 10 cents) per pot of water,” he said.
That’s a significant cost for people who
sometimes make less than 200 rupees per
day.
With Bangalore’s population likely to
reach 20 million by 2031, the city’s water
troubles are likely to get worse.
Water stations have already popped up
across the city for people to buy drinking
water.
One resident, S.R. Reddy, said he was
spending more than $20 a month to buy
water for his family.
“We spend one fourth of our earnings for
water,” he said.
Experts in Bangalore say the problem is
not the availability of water but its
management.
Ramachandra, of the Indian Institute of
Science, said his study showed that almost
70 percent of the city’s water requirement
could be effectively harvested from its
annual rainfall.
The study also recommended working
with local communities and ensuring their
participation in lake rejuvenation and
waste management plans.
Some citizens’ groups in Bangalore have
begun to collaborate with the city
administration to help restore the fresh
water lakes.
Not too long ago, one of the city’s oldest
lakes, Agara Lake, was heavily polluted.
With funding from the state govern-
ment, a project to manage the sewage
inflow, remove weeds, and de-silt the lake
started in 2016.
The lake is now showing signs of revival.