Bengaluru: When Bengaluru resident Sanjeev Sreedharan started construction of his house in 2021 in an upscale gated community in Whitefield—the heart of the city’s technology corridor—the first thing he did was dig a borewell.
Sreedharan spent Rs 4 lakh on the borewell and an additional Rs 60,000 for a water softener for household needs like cooking, he told ThePrint, adding that the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) had charged him and all households in the area Rs 25,000 for corporation water supply, but the water never came.
Bengaluru’s piped drinking water comes from the Cauvery river, about 100 km away from the Karnataka capital, or most homes use packaged water.
“Without water supply from the Cauvery river, people are left with two options: to drill their own borewell or buy water from outside, which is also from a borewell,” he said. “The problem with drilling a borewell is that it is risky, since even after 700 feet, there is no guarantee of getting water.”
Sreedharan is one among many software professionals whose work has helped Bengaluru earn its moniker as India’s IT capital and who reside in the city’s outer periphery but have been denied basic infrastructure like roads, sewerage and even drinking water.
However, the residents of these parts are now hopeful of access to at least drinking water, with the Siddaramaiah-led Karnataka government Wednesday commissioning the 5th phase of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme.
The Rs 4,336-crore project aims to supply about 775 million litres a day of drinking water to 50 lakh people in 110 villages that were subsumed in 2007 by the rapid and unplanned expansion of Bengaluru. Japan International Cooperation Agency has financed the project.
These villages are in the city’s periphery, including the Whitefield area. The project promises to benefit localities like Yeshwanthpur, R.R. Nagar, Dasarahalli, Mahadevapura, Byatrayanapura, as well as Bengaluru South and Bommanahalli.
Similar water problems plague other urban centres of India, such as Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad, which are also grappling to accommodate growing migration, leading to a dip in overall quality of life in some of India’s biggest cities and growth engines.
“Bengaluru’s population has grown to 1.5 crore now. We are planning to use water from Thippagondanahalli reservoir as well in the future,” D.K. Shivakumar, Deputy Chief Minister and irrigation minister of Karnataka, told reporters Wednesday.
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Bengaluru’s expansion and resultant woes
In 2007, Bengaluru expanded from around 300 square kilometre (sqkm) to nearly 800 sqkm, with the new localities governed by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP, the city’s civic body) that was formed that year from its erstwhile avatar, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.
The 110 villages—now fully integrated with Bengaluru—turned into real estate havens and hubs of unchecked construction of tech parks and high-rise apartments to house corporates, leading to widespread encroachment of lakes, open spaces, drains and overexploitation of groundwater.
The state government and city administration spend thousands of crores each year to improve infrastructure but corruption, inefficiency, lack of long-term solutions and inability to keep up with the growing population and its aspirations have been a let down, residents from Whitefield, Nekkundi and Bellandur told ThePrint.
Most of these apartments and housing complexes currently buy water from water tankers.
“There is illegal digging of borewells… groundwater is a public good and commercial sale of this public good is happening in the outer areas of Bengaluru,” Zibi Jamal, a corporate communications professional and volunteer of Whitefield Rising, a citizens’ movement, told ThePrint.
In March this year, the severe shortage of water led to water tankers charging exorbitant prices with waiting periods extending from one to three days for supply of water. Tankers also get water from borewells, compounding the problem and further exploiting the groundwater table.
Though good rain has led to some improvement in groundwater levels, overexploitation and excessive concretisation is depleting the resources faster than they can recharge. The water shortage has further forced Bengaluru to depend on another water source about 100 km away in Mandya.
According to T.V. Ramachandra, from the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), lack of political will, prolonged droughts and exploitation will only add to the existing challenges.
“Land cover has changed over the past five decades. In the 1970s, there was 68 percent green cover in the Bengaluru area and less than 8 percent of the surface was paved. In 2023 or 2024, however, this has changed with paved surfaces now occupying 86 percent, while vegetation accounts for a mere 3 to 4 percent,” he had told ThePrint earlier this year.
Though Bengaluru, in normal monsoon years, receives copious amounts of rain, most of the water cannot seep into the ground due to concretisation.
In most localities, water wastage is also high due to washing of cars to remove thick layers of dust everyday, according to residents.
Less than half of the used water is treated and reused. Most of it is sent to fill up tanks in the city’s neighbouring districts such as Chikkaballapura and Kolar, among others.
Most of the used water is further let into drains. As a result, the Vrishabhavathi river, a minor water body that flows through the city’s south, has become more of a large drain. Lakes, natural valleys and storm water drains have also been encroached upon, leaving the water nowhere to go but flood the streets of the city and jam traffic.
According to Shivakumar, the Bengaluru corporation authorities are fully prepared to deal with heavy rains and the accumulated water can be drained out in half an hour.
However, the streets of Bengaluru paint a different picture with flooded roads and underpasses, and entire localities underwater amid the heavy downpour in the city since Monday.
Manyata Tech Park in north Bengaluru is currently flooded with water levels reaching almost 4 feet. This 300-acre tech village was built on the wetlands of Nagawara Lake, users pointed out on X, indicating how authorities had allowed construction for corporations on encroached upon water bodies.
Politics behind it all
The BBMP has been functioning without an elected council since September 2020. Despite assurances by the Siddaramaiah government as well as its predecessors on conducting elections, little is being done about it on ground.
According to former BBMP corporators, legislators from all parties are unlikely to conduct elections and want to retain control over the corporation’s affairs and its deep pockets.
The state’s ruling Congress has also tabled the Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2024, which proposes to expand the city’s boundaries from the existing 800 sqkm to nearly 1,500 sqkm. This would include far off talukas like Ramanagara, Kanakpura and Bidadi.
Shivakumar has further gained consensus to change the name of Ramanagara district to Bengaluru South.
This has been seen as Shivakumar’s way of undoing his foe H.D. Deve Gowda’s legacy and gain more control over parts of the Vokkaliga belt. The Vokkaligas comprise the second-largest population in the state, with decisive numbers of its members spread across southern Karnataka.
Now, Shivakumar would likely be seen as the person who brought drinking water to large parts of Bengaluru, and has even promised to operationalise the long-pending Yettinahole drinking water project later this month.
“Many MPs have criticised the Yettinahole project, saying that it will not see the light of day. Many criticised us for the damaged crest gate at Tungabhadra dam. Criticisms die and good work lives on. Their criticisms are dead and our work has come to life. This project is a standing example of this,” Shivakumar told reporters Wednesday.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)