To give a quick dump, Bangalore water index is a project, where we aim to track the "water health" of our city in a numerical way.
This involve all kind of dat ranging from the quality to the supply side. We aim to consider the cost etc as well while calculating this index.
For further details please refer praja.in/en/bwi
We had meet the Chairman of BWSSB a month or so back, from there we have not taken it further and it is stagnant.
I wanted some suggestion as to how to go about the project and what our approach should be.
We have one suggestion that we begin with helping out on a project called bloogle, which seeks to map rainwater harvesting structures all across Bangalore , since it has been made mandatory by the BWSSB, and see whether we can report and crowd source positive stories.
We could start with the same and then take on water index from there.
Collecting data in itself is a project, please post your take on the same.
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True cost of water
I was trying to find the true cost of water (per liter/kiloliter) as against what we are being charged by BWSSB. Is there some data available for the same? Is this something that will be a part of the index?
PS: I found it in zenrainmans calculation here. 186% subsidy.
The production cost of water is the cost to collect the water from the river, treat it, pump it to the city, store it and distribute it to the consumer and finally bill it. According to a paper by Prof. G S Sastry from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, this figure is Rs.23.13 a kilolitre
At the end of the month, the family would get a bill for Rs.201 for water consumption. It has cost the BWSSB Rs.575 (23 rupees times 25 kiolitres) to supply this water to the consumer's doorstep. Since the family only pays Rs.201, it has received a subsidy of Rs.374 for that month
So let me begin by answering
So let me begin by answering your question, Is there some data available for the same? Is this something that will be a part of the index?
There is some data available, which we could get with the help of Zenrainman sir. He has pointed us to a lot of things.
For the index there is a list of question/data/information that was formulated praja.in/en/bwssb-data-collection-form, we were hoping to use all these information to have a relative water index for different wards etc.
So I think the list we have is good to go for now, the question remains how do we get this information.
More organized form
The questions in the above mentioned form have been updated in a more tabular form as well.
So that it is easy to fill that data, will upload those as well.
I assume that the index is
I assume that the index is trying to cover parameters more in-depth than the map provided by http://bangalorepatrol.com/.
Any index needs standards (ISEC, WHO etc. - not hard to obtain) and data (BWSSB, "crowdsourcing"/surveying etc. - the hard part). What data is BWSSB willing to part with say on an annual basis so that the index is updated once per year? Best to start a pilot for 2 wards and see if interest grows or time permits. If BWSSB has data by region (i.e. a group of wards), then best to start pilot between two regions and limit to residential water. Always best to ask and start with BWSSB. Crowdsourcing / surveying are not practical with volunteering.
Easiest data to obtain is probably the water supply and billing - it will fulfill two parameters for the index namely usage (lpcd) and leakage percentage.
Eg: Region A - 25000 kL supplied; Rs. 2.5 million (or 25 lakhs) amount collected in bills. At Rs. 200 per kL, 500 connections, 12500 kL (or 50%) unaccounted. Availablity = (25000-12500)*1000/500=25000 liters per family per month. Or, 25000/(30*4) = 208 lpcd (assuming 4 family members). The last number could be refined by looking at individual bills at praja's homes (sample of say 3-4 families) and extrapolated with greater accuracy.
Get similar numbers for Region B and you have the first 2 parameters born ;-). The parameters can be compared between two regions and/or against acceptable benchmarks.
The data collection form is daunting to the say the least. Anything beyond a simple start and a) data will be harder to collect, process, b) loses steam (no volunteers, no time).
G map of RwH structures
We had attempted to make such a map earlier, but clearly this needs to be crowdsourced.
Click here to access the maps
We can collaborate on this map.
Water health of the city
@n, the bangalore patrol is a very general index, it "measure the broad categories such as Sanitation, Mobility etc that influence our quality of life in the city."
I am not sure what parameters of water were considered for this.
And yeah, in a way we are looking at a more in depth kind of index for water.
Also doing a pilot project for 2 areas is a good ides :)
As for the data collection form, for now we are not aiming at getting the information from publeic. If you see the form and the questions, you will notice for now these are very broad question which BWSSB should be able to answer.
G map of RwH structures
@indiawaterportal, I think we can surely see what we can do together.
It would be very helpful if you could give a little bit more detail, like what is the aim and what is that you are looking for.
Also I was not able to access the map, is there a link where all this data is available, about the intention of the map, what it maps etc.
Response
Sorry here is the link
This is a map of some of the RwH structures in Bangalore.
How about we all meet at our office and ideate on how we can build on this project?
Re: Response
Sure we can do that, is that the same as Arghyam office?
Contact
GIve us your phone number or mail deepak@arghyam.org to fix a time.
Yes, it is Arghyam office