In 15 years, just half of the city’s thirst may be slaked. This grim picture comes from a report by Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC), which says that the current system is incapable of keeping up with the growth of the city.
By 2021, the city faces a deficit of more than 1,000 million litres per day (MLD). In perspective, the current water supply to the city from the Cauvery is just around 1,400 MLD. This deficit is estimated to increase to 2,311 MLD in 15 years.
“The focus of the report is not to project doom and gloom. Yes, the situation is bad, but there is an opportunity for us to act before the crisis cripples the city,” said Revathy Ashok, chief executive officer of B.PAC, who had sent the report — co-signed by B.PAC president Kiran Majumdar-Shaw and vice-president T.V. Mohandas Pai — to the Chief Minister’s office recently.
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Among the solutions suggested is to reduce losses in transmission in the pipes. BWSSB officials said the Unaccounted Flow of Water (UFW) project, scheduled to be completed by 2017, will cut losses from a staggering 48 per cent (this is equivalent to water from nearly 90,000 water tankers being dumped) to 16 per cent.
Apart from this, the report emphasises recycling water through treatment plants, rainwater harvesting and rejuvenating the city’s lakes, which can add up to 500 MLD directly into the system.
“Solutions do not happen overnight. There needs to be a thrust towards sustainable use of water. The laws are there, they just need to be enforced,” said Ms. Ashok.
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BWSSB Chairman T.M. Vijay Bhaskar concurs, believing that the city will have to go into recycling and reusing water in the near future. “We’ll have to tap more groundwater by giving thrust to rainwater harvesting. Ultimately, if even this is insufficient, we will have to start looking at more distant sources,” he said, referring to the BWSSB’s report on tapping other sources of water.