ABIDe report on water, wasterwater and sanitation

is here (cannot attach file as the size is greater by 0.4 MB than the limit on praja). Highlights / comments below.

Water / wastewater:
1) Dr. Kiran Shaw brought up the much needed point about using lakes for water supply and needing to prevent waste / chemicals from entering lakes.
The latter seems very difficult / impossible. Best would be to build a series of mini sewerage treatment plants at all lakes (single / multiple plants depending on amount of waste generated in the surrounding areas) and charge the dischargers accordingly. The treated water can be re-supplied to the surrounding areas for non-potable purposes. Much better than milking the Cauvery dry and/or pumping from Mangalore etc.
Same point is mentioned in water sources. All this is needed as soon as possible.
2) RWH has already been made mandatory and much water has flown in terms of discussions - so no more on that.
3) The policies are all good.
4) The creation of a Bangalore Water Management Authority (BWMA) is murky at best. Without a clear mandate for metropolitan planning authority (MPA), the creation, devolution of powers etc. will end up like BMLTA - toothless. BWMA should be put off for now.
5) BWSSB and BBMP integration in management is good - need to see it implemented pronto as BBMP can coordinate road-digging with road-laying. It is going to be tricky as BWSSB is para-statal (has a minister in-charge as well) and will see no reason to "follow" BBMP - should wait and see.
6) The Bangalore Spatial Information Center (BASIC) is very good; it is unclear how the BBMP fits into the BASIC scheme (pun unintended). BASIC is said to be a BMRDA baby.
7) Water supply and tariffing - all very good ideas but going to be politically very unpopular. Don't have any hopes of it seeing the light of the day in the near term.
8) Concept of monitoring / measuring water table is a very good idea. The results should be made public on BWSSB's website.
Generally, it is always a better idea to construct artificial lakes in elevated areas that will, with treatment, serve potable water to the surrounding areas. And, to build artificial lakes in the same vicinity that will get treated water discharged to them that can be re-used for non-potable purposes. The cost savings in long-distance pipes and income from sewerage dischargers should more than offset the treatment plant and separate pipe (potable/non potable) costs.

Stormwater:
1) The suggestion is to do away with storm water drains and switch to in-situ percolation of water.
There cannot be a more important improvement (saving lives, cost to people etc.) than this. This is needed yesterday. Perhaps RKCHARI managed to convince the authorities by his pilot implementation!

Sanitation / waste management:
To be discussed in a separate meeting.
The above two topics are equally important and urgent. Especially waste management as BBMP still does not have "official" landfill sites to dispose of non-degradable waste. A proper landfill is one that is surrounded by impermeable geomembranes that will not allow leaching / percolation into or out from the landfill. Does anybody know where all the garbage is ending up? In farms on city outskirts? In major storm water drains?

The report does not talk about the results / implementations of the previous reports. Now it is more than the two months mentioned for the various reports from BWSSB / BBMP / UDD and there is no indication of their reports either. ABIDe meetings seem to be few and far between - is it dying a slow death?

Unrelated - there was a workshop by DULT on all things BRT (link and PDF). Seems to have good information including implementations in Ahmedabad and Delhi. What is lacking is the comparison to railways (CRS should be the hands-down winner in sustainability). That was always my (radical?) suggestion: replace PRR or any other RR with ring, on-grade, metro-like railways. Far fewer lanes, higher capacity / sustainability etc. Anyway, please fork of this topic (BRT etc.) into a different thread for whoever wants to pursue.