As the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is batting for an optimal growth scenario for 2031, for a projected population of 2.3 crore, irrigation experts and farmers are tearing into the agency’s water plans, arguing that the solutions proposed are impractical and ecologically damaging.
Even as BDA attributes all strategies to the Expert Committee (2013) on new water resources for Bengaluru, committee chairman B.N. Thyagaraja struck a defiant note. “We did consider multiple alternatives, but finally recommended diversion of water from Linganamakki reservoir as the most viable. But we find that BDA has included all the strategies we had considered but then deemed unviable in the report for multiple reasons, including environmental issues as part of the 2031 scenario,” said Mr. Thyagaraja, who is also the former chairman of BWSSB.
For a water demand pegged at 5340 MLD by 2031, BDA wants to draw water from not only the Cauvery, but from Yettinahole, Konganahole, and Kakkattuhole, west flowing tributaries in the Western Ghats, Linganamakki reservoir and even the Hemavathi canal. In the RMP it has put out, the development authority has claimed the suggested water resources are based on the recommendations of the Expert Committee.
But it has accounted 10 tmcft of water from Yettinahole, while the government has allotted only 2.3 tmcft, and even as BDA has accounted for 12.88 tmcft from the Cauvery, the government has allotted only 10 tmcft, Mr. Thyagaraja said. “Diversion of water from Konganahole and Kakkattuhole can work out very cheap. But it involves legal sanction from the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal and Kerala, which may turn it unviable,” he said, batting for pumping up 30 tmcft of water from Linganamakki reservoir at an estimated cost of ₹12,500 crore.
However, diversion of water from Linganamakki reservoir is also not a strategy that is widely accepted. Former bureaucrat V. Balasubramaniam, who as the chairman of the Centre for Policies and Practices, conducted a study of the water woes of the city in 2014, said any diversion of water from Linganamakki — presently a power reservoir — would seriously hamper the energy situation in already power deficit State.
Similarly, the diversion of water from Hemavathi canal has also drawn much criticism. “How can Bengaluru draw 5 tmcft of water from Hemavathi canal, without depleting water in the Cauvery basin, whose waters is highly contested between four riparian States and this can never be achieved,” said renowned irrigation expert Prof. N. Narasimhappa. It is not just irrigation experts, even farmer leaders have expressed serious reservations over the BDA’s proposed plans for meeting Bengaluru’s water requirements. Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, president, Karnataka Rajya Raita Sangha, said that the development authority’s assumption of right over waters of various other catchment areas at the cost of local farmers was astounding. “Farmers will not take this sense of entitlement of Bengaluru lying down. Yettinahole is for the parched districts of Kolar and Chickballapur and definitely not for Bengaluru,” he said.
No focus on sustainable methods
What comes across most strikingly through BDA’s strategy for water needs is the lack of any focus on water conservation. It has put out three scenarios for 2021, 2031 and 2051, of which the first mention of Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) is made as an afterthought only in 2051 and nothing until then.
S. Vishwanath of the Rainwater Club said that the crux of the problem was the projection of 5,340 MLD of water by 2031. “The projection clearly shows that there is no element of conservation factored in. There are multiple instances where the per capita has been reduced to 100 litres, which is optimum. But we are still working with over 220 litres per capita. The only way ahead is to bring down the demand,” he said, adding that if the demand was constrained, rainwater harvesting and waste water treatment can alone meet the growing demands. “We need to focus more on the city’s internal resources than looking out,” he said.
The only conservation measure BDA has recommended in the short term is to control leakage from 48 per cent to 16 per cent, which will save 4 tmcft of water.
