by BENGALURU, India (AP) – Bhavani Mani Muthuvel and her family of nine have about five 20-liter (5-gallon) buckets of water a week for cooking, cleaning and household chores.
“From taking showers to using toilets and washing clothes, we’re taking turns doing everything,” she said. That is the only water they can afford.
Muthuvel, a resident of Ambedkar Nagar, a low-income settlement in the shadow of the large headquarters of global software conglomerates in Bengaluru’s Whitefield neighborhood, usually relies on piped water, which is sourced from groundwater. But it is drying up. She said it was the worst water crisis she had experienced in the neighborhood in 40 years.
February and March have been unusually warm in Bengaluru in southern India, and in recent years, it has received little rain partly due to human-induced climate change. Water levels are running extremely low, particularly in the poorest areas, resulting in high water costs and declining supply.
Municipal and state government authorities are trying to get the situation under control with emergency measures such as nationalizing water tankers and limiting water costs. But water experts and many residents fear the worst is yet to come in April and May when the summer sun is at its strongest.
The crisis was a long time coming, said Shashank Palur, a Bengaluru-based hydrologist with the think tank Water, Environment, Land and Livelihoods.
“Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and the infrastructure for fresh water supply is unable to keep up with a growing population,” he said.
Groundwater, which more than a third of the city’s 13 million residents depended on, is rapidly depleting. City authorities say 6,900 of the 13,900 boreholes drilled in the city have run dry despite some being drilled to a depth of 1,500 feet. Those who depend on groundwater, like Muthuvel, now have to rely on water tankers pumped from nearby villages.
Palur said El Nino, a natural phenomenon that affects weather patterns around the world, and the city receiving less rain in recent years means “the recharge of groundwater levels has not happened as expected.” A new piped water supply from the Cauvery River about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the city has also not been completed, adding to the crisis, he said.
Another concern is that paved surfaces cover nearly 90% of the city, preventing rainwater from running down and being stored in the ground, said TV Ramachandra, a research scientist at the Center for Ecological Sciences at the Institute of Science Indian based in Bengaluru. The city has lost almost 70% of its green cover in the last 50 years, he said.
Ramachandra compared the city’s water shortage to the “day zero” water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2018, when that city came perilously close to turning off most of its taps due to drought.
The Indian government estimated in 2018 that more than 40% of Bengaluru’s residents will not have access to drinking water by the end of the decade. Only those who get piped water from rivers outside Bengaluru are still getting regular supply.
“Right now, everyone is drilling landing wells in buffer zones of lakes. That is not the solution,” said Ramachandra.
He said the city should instead focus on replenishing over 200 lakes spread across the city, stop new construction on lake areas, encourage rainwater harvesting and increase green cover across the city.
“We will only solve the city’s water problem if we do this,” he said.
Palur added that it could also help to identify other sources and use them intelligently, for example by reusing treated wastewater in the city “to reduce the demand for fresh water”.
Until then, some residents are taking serious measures. S. Prasad, who lives with his wife and two children in a housing society consisting of 230 flats, said they have started water rationing.
“Since last week we have closed the water supply to homes for eight hours every day, starting at 10 am. Residents have to store water in containers or do everything they need in the allotted time. We also plan to install water meters soon,” he said.
Prasad said their housing society, like many others in Bengaluru, is willing to pay high water costs, but even then it is difficult to find suppliers.
“This water shortage is not only affecting our work but also our daily life,” said Prasad.
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