Bengaluru: Recycle water to quench city's thirst'

BENGALURU: Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), on Monday, disseminated the findings from its recently concluded three-year long research on Bengaluru's water, wastewater and lake system.

The study stresses on meeting the water requirements by harnessing recycled wastewater and use of lakes as a potent source for the city, rather than depending on Cauvery river. 

“So far there was no study detailing how the city of Bengaluru can live on its own resources by utilising both rainwater and recycled wastewater. External dependence on Cauvery could be limited by treating wastewater and storing it in lakes,” said Veena Srinivasan, a scholar with ATREE. 

The three-year-long study included survey data on household and commercial, industrial and institutional (CII) water consumption, analysis of KSPCB records, population, household and economic census data, the BWSSB billing database and water cess records. 

It was highlighted that at present only 20 per cent of the households use rainwater which reveals that it remains an untapped resource to meet the water demands.

The study also reveals discrepancies in the way water data are reported in public records as well as annual reports. 

The study adds, “Although the government has been promoting decentralized wastewater treatment, there are issues that most of the treated wastewater is not reused and the compliance levels are low, for which the government must provide incentives to apartments.” 

The study suggested that creation of new centralised wastewater treatment infrastructure should go hand in hand with laying of the underground drainage network. 

Citizen’s Dashboard for Bengaluru’s Lakes, a project that aims to provide data to the citizen's groups who are interested in protecting lakes was introduced. 
“The premise of Citizen’s Dashboard for Bengaluru's Lakes is that despite years of research, both the government agencies and the citizens are ill-equipped to handle the management of these lakes as information is neither consolidated nor made usable to facilitate easy and informed decision making,” said S. Vishwanath, Director, Biome Environmental Solutions.