Bangalore Bore well data

Submitted by Rithesh on 16 April 2010 - 8:06am

Total number of borewells in all BWSSB zones:

	31/01/09	28/02/09	31/03/09	30/04/09	31/05/09	30/06/09
Increase per month		924	705	965	1136	748
Grand Total	91018	91942	92647	93612	94748	95496

	31/07/09	31/08/09	30/09/09	31/10/09	30/11/09	31/12/09	31/01/10
Increase per month	904	868	2062	838	875	2699	1759
Grand Total	96400	97268	99330	100168	101043	103742	105501

Note: The 5 BWWSB zones are North, South, East, South, Central, South East

Zone (BWWSB zones) wise distribution of bore wells

Zone wise growth in the number of bore wells

	East	South	South East	Central	North	West	Total
YoY % increase	13.7	22.7	15	7.2	16.5	11.6	15.9
Average monthly increase (count)	94	503	137	42	191	241	1207

Percentage of households having bore wells

Zone	No of Borewells	No of Connections	% of house with borewells
East	9346	81583	11.46
South	32593	124065	26.27
South East	12555	67338	18.64
Central	7206	49429	14.58
North	16126	89476	18.02
West	27675	148156	18.68
Grand Total	105501	560047	18.84

Summary

South and West zones have the highest number of borewells.
South and North zones have witnessed the highest increase of borewell in terms of percentage.
Old Banglore regions which relatively has better water supply infrastructure also has the highest number of bore wells.
In South zone 1 in every 4 buildings with a BWSSB water connection has a bore well.
For the city approximately 1 in every 5 buildings with a BWSSB water connection has a bore well.
As on Jan 2010 only around 1.5% of buildings with BWSSB water connection had rain water harvesting facilities.
The data is only from BWSSB serviced regions (out of 750 sq KM BWWSB caters to only around 330 sq KMs). This roughly translates to approximately 320 bore wells in every 1 sq KM.
Approximately 40 new borewells are drilled every day in regions covered by BWSSB.
BWSSB charges a sewage cess of Rs.50 for every house with a bore well.
The total number of bore wells in the whole of BBMP region is much larger.

Conclusion

Bore well drilling business is "the" business you need to be in :)

Please see the attached documents provided by zenrainman for exact zone wise distribution. Thank you zenrainman for sourcing and sharing the data.

Attachment	Size
borewellb.pdf	377.19 KB
borewella.pdf	382.8 KB

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Bore wells in Bangalore

Submitted by zenrainman on 16 April 2010 - 9:03am.

In so far as I know this is the FIRST time such city level data is being put in public domain. A ll thanks to the BWSSB too which is the first institution to levy a charge on bore wells and measure the number of bore wells wherever they have given connection.

Can we have a voluntary sample of bore well owners reporting how much they pump every day?

Can we get a volumetric meter put on each bore well?

Can we start to generate random sample quality data of groundwater across the city?

Can we measure the impact of rainwater harvesting on bore wells in the city?

Can we find out how many of them go dry?

Great possibility ...let us work on modelling this for the city with the help of Dr Shekar Muddu

Great data on borewells

Submitted by sanjayv on 16 April 2010 - 9:35am.

How good is this data? Any idea? Is it based on voluntary reporting? I wonder if there is a relatively simple statistical sampling method to verify the accuracy of current data. Should be possible.

@sanjayv

Submitted by Rithesh on 16 April 2010 - 9:40am.

These are official figures from BWSSB (source: via zenrainman). I only wish if we got it as a soft copy. They maintain the bore well information coz they collect an attentional cess of Rs. 50 from every building with a bore well. This is a pretty significant sum - around 52 Lakhs per month.

post on behalf of a friend

Submitted by shekhar_mittal on 16 April 2010 - 9:53am.

How does it impact bangalore?
how much water approx. is being pumped out daily / annually => how much ground water consumption has increased annually => the depletion rate of ground water level? Is something being done to replenish that water?
By when will the ground water start drying up if nothing is done to replenish it.

Another angle, how does high no. of borewells impact the living std of people?
How many ppl now get easy access to water daily?
What were their earlier alternatives and how has that changed in terms of time / money saved ?
How healthy / clean this ground water is?
Are there manufacturing companies dumping their waste into the ground that is polluting this ground water & how can that in turn impact people's health?

And if Praja has already found answers to these questions, then link those related articles to this one on the site.

collecting the data is a good start, but it must lead to contextually relevant findings if you really want to get people interested.

Borewell Data

Submitted by Naveen on 16 April 2010 - 9:59am.

Though the accuracy of this data might be suspect, it's still a good start to have some idea, particularly since BWSSB is now on the path to providing piped water to a much larger greater bangalore than before that now includes the erstwhile 7 CMCs & 1 TMC. I guess there might be many more that are either unreported or ignored in these stats, even within the Bwssb covered areas.

The increase in the number of borewells is on the high side, but nothing much can be done about this since most apt complexes rely mainly on borewells since piped supply alone is erratic & insufficient, particularly in peripheral areas.

Are there any permissions required to dig a borewell ? As far as I know, none are necessary & one finds borewell trucks digging them at almost every conceivable spot.

I noticed recently that a small apt complex (about 16 homes) was drilling a borewell almost at the edge of their compound, demolishing part of the boundary wall for this, & with the borewell truck obstructing the street. When I questioned the truck for erratic parking for long periods, the apt society's rep who happened to be around came by to explain that it was only for two days & they were forced to do this since the older borewell further inside the compound had gone dry & the water table closer to the road was higher!

Bore wells

Submitted by psaram42 on 18 April 2010 - 7:01am.

Now rain water harvesting is compulsory in Bangalore. I have remodeled my RWH plan in such a way that the entire rain water falling over my 60x40 plot is directed to a shallow well existing in my compound, in such a way that no water is discharged in to the storm water drain in front of my house, until this well is full. Thus only the excess rain water when there is a heavy down pour is allowed to be discharged in to the storm water drain.

So far all the rain water of the current season has been used to charge the ground water in my 60x40 plot. Now I am planning to put a bore in the existing open well, so that all the rain water gets charged into the ground efficiently, even when it rains heavily.

I feel that the entire Rain water of the city and its surrounding areas should be used to charge the ground water table by this method. These aspects were discussed in the BIOME seminar held some time back.

A better opportunity is there in RWH

Submitted by psaram42 on 26 April 2010 - 6:36pm.

deleted

BORE WELL

Submitted by bikram satpathi on 30 April 2010 - 7:05pm.

RWh is the right way. Never Too Late. Every one with a Bore Well will invariably try to charge the Bore Well directly or via pit nearby. Ove time the ground Water will gert some contamination. Large area wher sewage lines get crossed will convey some contamination. Still no Problem. Can we get a yrly status of BoreWells Dead / Bore wells live area wise. Most residents want to dig Bore Wells with tons of money they have. If they started the Retention or Detention method of RWH at least we wouldnt miss out on opportunity of gone by rains..

The role of bore-wells in Bangalore

Submitted by zenrainman on 5 May 2010 - 8:41pm.

There are certain significant aspects to bore-wells in Bangalore

1. These are in hard rock terrain...limited in volume but easy to recharge. Take a look at this video to understand how bore-wells actually draw water from fissures

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lVTPhsvp38

2. The city as a whole , about 1250 sq . km. area which includes the green belt, gets an equivalent of 3000 million litres per day as rain. Natural recharge is between 8 to 10 % which makes up the groundwater.i.e. around 300 million litres per day equivalent can be drawn sustainably. Through rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge this natural recharge rate can be increased I believe as much as upto 50 % of incident rain .i.e 1500 million litres per day - the same volume that can be brought from the Cauvery finally.

Take a look here how it can be done in storm water drains which do not carry sewage and which are maintained clean by responsible citizens ( if they exist in Bangalore :):) )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shGyzOjTw14&feature=related and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_VGaPr610&feature=related

at individual households, such as that of Ram sir's , which have an open well or who make recharge wells as per the rainwater harvesting directive recharge of groundwater can happen so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4lwi-zUlZc&feature=related

3. The advantage of city scale rainwater harvesting is that it will not only enhance groundwater but also prevent urban flooding.

4. With the rehabilitation of tanks in full swing ( hopefully) further recharge of groundwater will occur and help restore levels of water in the aquifers.

5. The critical problem will be of Nitrate contamination. This can only be addressed by universal coverage of household with sewerage systems and the collection and conveyance of all sewage in pipes for treatment. This must then be the primary focus of the BWSSB , no sewage in our storm drains and in our tanks/lakes.

6. The cost per kilo-litre of groundwater is around Rs 8- 10 /- per kilo-litre, much, much cheaper than the Cauvery water supply planned to bring an additional 500 mld. As the groundwater table rises the electricity required to pump water also reduces as will carbon emissions.

7 We therefore need to closely monitor both the quality and the dry/non-dry bore wells through a citizens report.

Sorry for the long e-mail but the power to bring positive change lies with us as much as with the institutions ...and we need to bring progressive laws and implement them meaningfully. We also need to start paying the TRUE cost of water as well as waste-water. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY THE PRINCELY SUM OF RS 15 A MONTH and hope that all our sewage will be collected , conveyed and treated. Surely we should think of a financial solution for this one.

If we do this, as we closely monitor the implementation of good rainwater harvesting systems, hopefully we will see positive solutions emerging at household level and at layout levels and finally at city level. This is how we hope to track rainwater harvesting implementation in the city

http://www.biome-solutions.com/biome/

The water index will be a powerful tool to engage with the solutions that the city so desperately needs and it is for the first time such data is coming into public domain, being analysed and discussed.

Great work prajagalay...and keep it up

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