This World Water Day, Bengaluru is once again on the critical list water-wise, with the BBC placing the city second on its global list of 11 cities that are ‘most likely to run out of drinking water’. Let us not despair yet because there are people like Nagaraj Gangolli, former wristwatch assembler and watchmaker who are working on practical solutions.
“All we need to work on in Bengaluru are the stormwater drains,” says Nagaraj. “If we dig wells every 500 metres, the groundwater would be recharged. The lakes are unusable as they are full of sewage. It is not easy to treat them now.”
Nagaraj, is a project director for the river rejuvenation project for the Art of Living (Vyakti Vikas Kendra) and is currently spearheading its implementation in Karnataka. The Art of Living has been working to rejuvenate rivers since 2013 and has revived 33 dying rivers across four States — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, benefitting 3,000 villages so far.
Nagaraj is now heading the revival of the Vedavathi River. He was part of the Kumudavathi River project, which is nearly completed. The Kumudavathi River is all set to supplement 20-30 per cent of Bengaluru’s water needs through city reservoirs such as Thippagondanahalli.
“Over 58 per cent of the rejuvenation process is complete, in the districts of Chikmagalur, Chitradurga and Hassan. Most of the work revolves around the building of water tanks or ponds.” he says over phone from Gadag district.
Over 350 ponds have been built till date. Building a water tank or pond is the key to restoring ground water levels in these districts. It takes 1,554 man days to build one pond, but the building process, according to his plan, needs to be completed in one month. That means that it needs more manpower.
The river rejuvenation plan that Nagaraj follows involves micro water sheds, which feed the first order and second order streams that then supply water to rivers (non-perennial rivers). When he first began working on the Vedavathi project, he needed to raise over ₹ 6 crore. “With no direct business interests in these parts, corporate benefactors weren’t keen to write the cheque,” says Nagaraj, who has been passionate about water conservation since childhood. He began working on river rejuvenation in 2011 when as part of his volunteering efforts he implemented a small project that helped over 100 farming families in Lakshmipura village. He worked to improve their access to groundwater, raising it from 350 feet to 80 feet at a cost of ₹11 lakhs.
It took him two years to find a multi-pronged solution for the implementation of the Vedavathi project.
“The government was wasting a lot of money on dam building and other similar projects. My plan will help restore water supply to the entire State, at just over ₹ 3000 crore.”
It involves tying up with the MNREGA programme in the State for the river rejuvenation work, thus helping provide employment.
“We work with the local governments to make an action plan for each district. We then make teams comprising the district/ taluk coordinator, and the Panchayat/village coordinators. We give them training on the execution process. We teach the village coordinator different ways to mobilize people and implement capacity building,” he explains.
“We also provide technical training to the government officials, with a thrust on identifying the course of the streams and the rivers through GPS coordinates. Once the government approves the execution, we take the teams to the streams to begin field work. We also have to monitor quality and help in material supply.”
The ground-breaking process for Vedavathi happened in 2014, with almost immediate results. By 2015, despite an underwhelming monsoon, ground water levels rose from over 700 feet to over 100 feet in the regions where the project was implemented.
While the first phase covered 49 villages, 9,992 families and a population of over 49,000, the second phase covers 1,097 villages, 24 village panchayats and 25 lakh people at a total cost of ₹188 crore. This project helped create employment opportunities for over 28,000 people under the MNREGA scheme.
He plans to complete the remaining 42 per cent of the second phase by June, despite the challenges.
“Even now, people think that the government must give water, no matter what. So they do not allow us to dig percolation pits near their houses. We then have to spend a lot of time with them to make them understand why we are doing this. It is equally hard for us to gain the support of the village panchayats because they want to take up big projects and this seems like a relatively small task to take up. So they don’t want to do it, sometimes the case even goes to the police station. This happens in almost every place we visit,” he explains.
“I have been shuttling between government offices over the past three days to ensure that the work in the Gadag district begins on time. It is hard to persuade the field officials but we are doing it.”
His objective is to ensure water supply to the state of Karnataka by 2024. At the same time, in the next few months, he plans to meet corporators in Bengaluru to submit an action plan to revive water supply in the region.
- The project is spearheaded by Dr Lingaraju Yale, Geohydrologist, Former Director, Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre, who has pursued water conservation through a unique method that channelized remote sensing devices to precisely map the catchment zones that needed restoration.
- His research details how ground water aquifers which are part of the soft rock layer of sub soil are recharged by forests through rainfall. The water that flows through these aquifers in turn recharges water bodies, including lakes, tanks, wells and stream networks that form rivers.
- “Now there is no water in the aquifers because because of overexploitation of ground water. Rapid deforestation and soil erosion in the last 50 years have ensured that the aquifers are not recharged. The roots of trees ensure that water percolates to the aquifers through gravity. They also prevent the soil from eroding and getting deposited into water bodies forming silt, which does not hold water,” he says.
- Silt flattens the structure of the water body, effectively ensuring that the water evaporates.
- “What we have to do is to copy nature, imitating how the aquifers were being filled. Forests are big agents in conserving soil and filling aquifers with water. We have to bring back natural vegetation,” he says.
- “The main component in the project is greening the earth. Even to raise forests we need water but there is no water. Fortunately, there is rain.”
- Dr Lingaraju maintains that despite fluctuations, rainfall levels have remained the same over the years, however unpredictable.
- His action plan harnesses this source to begin the recharge process through simple structures. There are three main structures — boulder checks to contain the flow of the water; recharge wells to ensure percolation, recharge aquifers and restore soil moisture; and constructing or de-silting water bodies to store water.
- When the aquifers are recharged, water starts flowing in the water bodies once more and rivers that were dried up are revived.
- “The most important step in this process is raising vegetation in the area. The boulder checks ensure that the soil moisture improves as it percolates, paving the way for tree plantation. Until they grow and take over the percolation process, the other mechanical structures will pay that role.”
- Another important factor is that only native species need to be planted for the percolation to happen, exotic species like eucalyptus or acacia that have been wrongfully planted in abundance, actually deplete water resources.
- The process is still not complete. “We have to educate people on the optimum use of water and protection of forest areas. All this is river rejuvenation.”
