Water crisis drives Bengaluru to the edge
BENGALURU: Five showers in a month, ordering out instead of cooking and using treated water for non-drinking purposes - the water crisis in Bengaluru has pushed residents to the wall as they struggle for every drop.
As the people adopt recycling methods to manage with less water, NDTV visited some parched areas and spoke to them about how life has changed.
Residents of suburban Babusapalya are dependent on water tankers for their daily supply, and that has taken a severe hit over the past couple of months.
“We need four tankers daily. We are geting only one or two. We are facing huge problems over the past two-three months,” one resident said.
Asked if the city administration’s order to fix tanker water rates has helped, a resident said, “The rates have stabilised, but the problem remains huge. We are not geting tankers on time because of high demand.”
A woman resident of an apartment complex in the area was leaving for work. When NDTV asked her about the towering water crisis, she replied, “We have a baby, it is very difficult.
“Tankers are not coming. The government has reduced the prices, but they are not coming. Even if they come, the water is not sufficient.
“I don’t know when this will get resolved and when we will get back to normal life.”
Asked if they are hopeful of beter times once the monsoon comes, a resident flagged problems with the way in which successive governments implemented development projects.
“They did not consider the (overall) wellbeing of people. The focus has been on building apartments and roads, but we need to work on the groundwater level. It has never been done.
“I have been here 15 years. I have never seen such measures by any government,” he said, adding that people are waiting in kilometre-long queues for drinking water.
One resident said he took a bath 5 times over the past one month.
Bengaluru primarily gets its water supply from two sources - Cauvery river and groundwater.
For most non-drinking uses, recycled water processed by sewage treatment plants is used. With no rain for a while now, the primary sources have been stretched to their limits.
Bengaluru needs 2,600-2,800 million litres of water daily, and the current supply is half of what’s required. The result is a daily struggle for the city’s residents.