Now that rains have saved Bangalore, forget about it?

There are many, many questions we need to ask SB.  Water (and waste water) in namma Bengaluru is in bad shape.  Spmehow, because we are "better" than some other cities, people are taking it easy.

There are many problems and solutions.  But the need of the hour is planning, investment, education and so on to ensure that this city an manage into the future.  We have to elaborate on all this and push for it.

SB,

Why are we saying here - "Did we indeed come 'close'?"

We are already beyond close. Cauvery water is available only for less than half population of bangalore, other half still rely on water tankers and borewells. KRS dam getting dry is visible but water table going below 1000 ft is another problem to be looked at and need to do something to find alternate sources of water.

More and more houses are coming on ORR and Sarjapur road, but no water.

We need to ask them - 

(1) What is their plan to make water reach every household?

(2) What is their plan to get alternate source of water? Lakes? RWH compulsury?

(3) Reduce dependency on Cauvery.

And many more such questions.

Some questions.

Are there only residential connections provided by BWSSB, or do they provide commercial connections? Usually, they say 10 million people need 140 million liters per day, but all the peopler are not getting BWSSB water. If no commercial connections are not there, how water is obtained for commercial purposes? Commercial use will be driving up the per person consumption data

Why not bring bigger restrictions on water like banning washing cars, watering plants etc, at least From April to June. banning common taps in apartments, which is used to wash cars could be very effective.

Are they doing some study about the causes of less rains, relation between increase in cars and decrease in rains ?! or filling up of lakes and decrease in rains. There is need for study with heavy budget to find the reasons.

for BWSSB - How is BWSSB hoping to reduce the "un-accounted for losses", supposedly in the region of 40% currently? Is it looking at outsourcing supply in select areas? What are the details of the L&T deal? What has been the learnings from the water-supply outsourcing exrcises in Hubli-Dharwar, Gulbarga, and Mysore?

for KNNL - The amount of Cauvery water used for drinnking purposes is miniscule compared to that used for irrigation. With reduced availability, shouldn't the riparian districts be switching to lesser water dependent crops than say sugarcane? Besides, shouldn't they be made to adopt drip irrigation, and such techniques than the conventional "field-flooding" type irrigation?

Does BWSSB plan to team up with BBMP to implement infiltration system than the present runoff system? Runoff may mix with sewerage and is rendered unusable or runs into a lake far away from rain cathment area.  Properly filtered infiltration recharges groundwater locally and also prevents flooding. This allows shallower borewells and slows expensive long-distance transportation of water.

It is time for the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), which is chaired by the prime minister and has chief ministers of the four states as members, to consider setting up a Cauvery River Livelihood Protection System that incorporates a pricing mechanism and a market for water to protect the livelihoods of farmers and the interests of other water users.

Such a system would involve states being assigned basic quotas of water and be required to purchase additional water from a river resource fund set up for the purpose. Payments by state governments to the river resources fund during the good times are akin to insurance premiums.

The basic quotas would be tradeable, allowing states to exchange water for money. This will allow states the flexibility to expand their agriculture or acquire additional fiscal resources to reform their agriculture sectors.

During droughts and bad monsoons, states will be compensated for the water deficits below their basic quotas, effectively acting as the insurance payout.

States would be able to purchase water above their basic quotas through an auction. Each state would form a bidding committee, chaired by the water resources minister and comprising of the members of the legislative assembly from the concerned constituencies. The states will thus be able to put an objective measure on how much they are willing to pay for the water they demand.

When states choose to receive compensation, the funds would flow into the state’s treasury allowing the state government to use the additional budgetary resources in accordance with its priorities.

To read the full text (emphasis added by me) of the article titled "Cost of Cauvery" by Mr Nitin Pai, in Jan '13, click here. Perhaps, we need to look at such out-of-the-box solutions if we have to have some respite from the repeat inter-state water wars.

The debates in this blog too could make interesting reading in this context.

There is no drinking water in Madikeri, the source of river Cauvery. Karnataka is much more arid than Haryana with ground water levels at 1000 feet and above. Not to mention that it is a hinterland area. Desalination is not an option nor is RWH effective because of erratic rainfall. 

TN can't keep growing water intensive crops like rice and sugarcane just like Mandya does. There is a drinking water crisis in both Wayanad and Karnataka and as per an SC judgement dated 1996 drinking water takes precedence over cultivation. The humanitarian crisis in Wayanad means that TN’s request for water to grow rice shows lack of humanitarian concern and civility. Problem is TN believes that it can keep demanding water from Kerala and Karnataka for its crops even when there is a humanitarian crisis upstream. They might invest on minor irrigation projects and exert pressure on SC to ensure that Karnata and Kerala not kill rivers through plantations and urbanization.

Jaya was sitting quiet when 50,000 trees were cut for a high tension line in Kodagu. I am sure she also does not care about massive desertification of areas around the tributaries of Cauvery in Bangalore rural, Ramanagar, Bangalore Urban and Tumkur. The warring politicians of all the states concerned care two hoots about the tribals of Wayanad who are facing a crisis worse than the Bundelkhand crisis.

The same logic applies to people of Mandya who want to use Cauvery water for sugarcane. KRS was built by Mysore Maharaja and this water is used to feed Mandya's fields and liquor factories. HD Kote taluk despite having Kabini reservoir and four small streams is completely dependent on rain water for irrigation and ground water for drinking.

I also forgot to mention that one of the judges was Jaya's counsel. Bangalore has water only till January. If TN still wants to grow rice and wants Bangalore to be evacuated then good luck to them.