Dear Prajegale,
The irony of our socialistic democracy is that supply of water is highly subsidzed for the rich and the poor pay through their nose to obtain water for their daily needs. Bangalore typifies the example of everything that is wrong with water supply, water management, ground water management, preservation of water bodies and rivers. The government of Karnataka spends thousands of crores on pumping water from KRS to quench the thirst of 10 million Bangaloreans. This has meant that there is a huge water print in so far as water supply is concerned.
The danger of such a long network is that there is always the danger of uncontrolled water leakage. The corrosion of these water pipes also means that the water supplied is actually not soft enough. What is appalling is the amount of subsidy that is offered to the residents of Bangalore who have no value for this scare resource. My suggestions on saving Bangalore for the future generation would be:
(1) Supply Cauvery Water only to those residents who are willing to cough up the actual costs
(2) Encourage social entreprenuers to set up community RWH Centres/ revive lakes at the ward level and supply water to those respective
(3) A Thames kind of revival for Arkvathy/ Vrishabvathy rivers
All this seems like wishful thinking. I was watching an interview of Dinesh Gundu Rao and like all politicians of Karnataka, he was mouthing the same old yarn on how the government was trying to quench the thirst of Bangaloreans by pumping in water from KRS.
This will kind of approach will eventually kill Bangalore. The IISC report might have been an exaggeration but the situation is very very grim.
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