Parched Chennai foretells torrent of woes for water-deprived Bengaluru

Bengaluru, for reasons that were entirely preventable, is on the brink of a water crisis. Lakes, our main source of water, have been exploited, encroached upon and destroyed by millions of litres of sewage. For years, activists have called for lake rejuvenation to replenish groundwater, rainwater harvesting and sewage treatment plants. None of these demands have been met, with successive governments using ad hoc measures  then putting the problem aside for another day. Even the formation of the Metropolitan Planning Committee has been left unheeded. Instead of laying the groundwork for water security, the government’s response is to ban construction of apartment buildings for the next five years, which experts say will only serve to send real-estate prices spiralling out of control, while doing nothing to tackle the problem at hand. Experts speak to Aksheev Thakur

‘Our lakes are dying, government doing nothing to prevent it’

Deputy Chief Minister, Dr G Parameswara’s statement on banning construction of apartments in the city for the next five years owing to a water crisis sounds not only ridiculous, but is also irresponsible. Article 21 of our Constitution provides right to life and liberty to every citizen of our country. No government can put a blanket ban on construction of new apartments as it abrogates this fundamental right of the people.

 The water crisis that Bengaluru is staring at is a symptom of a larger underlying disease. A long term vision coupled by good governance would have saved us from such a sorry state of affairs. There are three main reasons for this dismal situation. First, urbanization and densification is part and parcel of a growing city like Bengaluru. However, city authorities like the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) must be equipped to address this rapid and extensive growth and create services infrastructure - the lack of which means simply dumping industrial effluents and sewage into various lakes.

Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), so necessary to treat raw sewage before discharge into the water bodies, are either underinvested in, non-functional or overloaded. In the absence of a sewage network in many places in the city and weak sanitary lines, over 42 per cent of the total waste water generated from households runs into lakes.

And without a proper suburban transportation  system, the city is increasingly becoming dense, and placing greater demand on its groundwater. The state government does not have the will to form the Constitutionally mandated Metropolitan Planning Committee which is supposed to plan for the city, despite court intervention.

 Second, we have destroyed our city’s lakes and water bodies. Being  situated 3,500 feet above sea-level, its lakes were the lifelines of Bengaluru. Once known as a ‘city of thousand lakes’ it has now reduced its lakes to frothing septic tanks. Many have disappeared due to encroachment and our parastatal agencies have lost count of how many we have left.

Our regulatory bodies have become toothless as rampant urbanisation and densification in areas around lakes and storm water drains has not been accompanied by regulation and enforcement of laws and rules. Instead, a culture of deliberate negligence has flourished. We have to stop this rampant encroachment and killing of our lakes. We need to penalise bureaucrats, who have failed to do their duty.

Third and most important is lack of awareness among citizens about the looming crisis. The irony, of course, is that the government is doing little to conserve Bengaluru's network of lakes and groundwater, which would be a natural source of drinking water, and instead spends crores to pipe water from the river Cauvery to meet the city's drinking water needs. Our people must know that after spending crores of our tax money to draw water from Cauvery, 37 per cent  of it is lost due to leakage and mismanagement. Unauthorised water connections thrive due to a nexus between parastatal agencies and the tanker mafia.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.” If we are to overcome the water crisis, we need to adopt the 3 Rs,  RECHARGE, RETENTION and REUSE. Every drop of rain water should be harvested, and every drop of sewage should be treated and reused for portable purpose.

After all, a city with a Rs 392,000 crore economy (annual GDP) and a population of 13 million, expected to go up to 32 million (as per RMP 2031),  deserves to be water secure.

– N.R. Suresh, Director, Namma Bengaluru Foundation

City mired in corruption, lack of scientific planning

The Karnataka government has come out with a proposal to ban building of new apartments to deal with the water crisis in the city. This comes as a surprise for  a few reasons. Until now, no alarm has been evident in any arm of the government or among officials or ministers.

But this is not surprising as typically, ministers and so-called experts in the government are not known to have a basic understanding of the holistic nature of water,  how it is a part of the larger scheme of things, and not just a commodity to be imported and sold.

Frankly, in my opinion, the announcement itself is a dramatic new paradigm.  For the first time, a government is talking about the carrying capacity of Bengaluru’s fragile ecosystem and the need to plan to help it —  not something the city has been accustomed to.  This is a fascinating new dimension to the politics of  Bengaluru, and  something we are not used to seeing in our political class. So, I raise a toast, simply because we somehow seem to have leapfrogged from ignorance to awareness.

 But now for a reality check. How can this proposal, even if well-intentioned, fit into a scheme of things  based on adhocism, lack of scientific planning, lack of transparency, widespread corruption, and so on?  Besides increasing the bribe collection from the developers and real estate lobby, will this measure really achieve anything?

But there are a few simple things the city can really do to not only fix the water crisis, but also a whole lot of things, along with it, like:
1) Streamline its planning. To do this it must empower the Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC), which has to masterplan from the wards upwards, comply with the 74th Amendment and mandate the masterplan, holistic.

2) Make ecological audit and limit the basic planning plank for each ward/locality/entire city.  Create a ward level ‘live’ ecology and resource map, so planning can be in sync with it.

3) Revise the mandate of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board to make “local water resilience” its primary goal. Instead of subsidising and incentivising import of water from faraway locations, it could then refocus on protecting and reviving local lakes, water bodies, rivers, recycling of waste water, and go in for massive reforestation to ensure the water cycle is revived and groundwater is regenerated.  

4) Turn government policy upside down by incentivising local watershed management and penalising the bringing of water from outside. Let each ward plan its own water management , subsidise its efforts to rebuild local groundwater and provide the water from local resources either cheap or free.  Allow wards and panchayats to trade among themselves to create a local water market.  Any water purchased from beyond one’s ward or panchayat should be priced at  ‘real costs’ and include a  penalty proportional to the distance covered.

5) Spread mass awareness about the inter-connectedness of trees and water, and the native water wisdom that we have lost. At this point it may be pertinent to recall Kempe Gowda’s mother's words:  “Plant trees, build lakes!”

– Sandeep Anirudhan, Co-founder of ‘Coalition for Water Security’ and ‘Citizens Agenda for Bengaluru

‘Population putting strain on resources but moratorium not the answer’

I don’t think this is an approach in the right direction. Knee-jerk decisions like this will only complicate the already gloomy housing scenario in Bengaluru. A moratorium on building apartments for five years will obviously lead to the builders of the existing projects taking undue advantage by projecting artificial shortage and jacking up the already unreasonable housing prices.

Instead, more stringent construction regulations coupled with some economic and other incentives to encourage water efficient construction and operational practices will go a long way and deliver positive results.

It is true that the growing urban population is putting a strain on the meagre local resources and the already inadequate utilities’ infrastructure. But there are other ways of addressing the issue than a blanket ban on construction activity.  

Active promotion of water conservation strategies like deploying drip-curing methods for concrete, use of recycled water for masonry works, employing off-site construction technologies like precast and pre-fabricated components, incorporating rainwater harvesting and ground recharge systems, installing water efficient plumbing and sanitary fixtures, automatic recirculation systems for the large volumes of reject water from WTP and RO plants, laying out micro-drip irrigation systems and use of drought-tolerant plants for horticulture, digital metering, monitoring and charging mechanisms,  can drastically bring down the overall water needs of the housing industry not just during the construction phase but through its operational phases as well.

– R.K.GAUTHAM, Director, Sustainability, Cushman and Wakefield, India