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16
September 2016
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Kaveri Water (The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions)
As Karnataka continues its legal battle over
the Cauvery, the states capital -- almost entirely dependent on the river --
wastes half the water it receives, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of
water-use data.
The only Indian city that wastes water at a
greater rate is Kolkata. And the situation in Bengaluru will only worsen. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Every Bangalorean -- 8.5 million people live
in India's third-most populous city -- should get 150 litres of water per day.
But what she gets is 65 litres, the equivalent of four flushes of a toilet.
Water is supplied, on average, thrice a week.
Over the next nine years, the city's water
demand is predicted to be three times more than supply.
Its population density 13 times higher than
Karnataka's average, Bengaluru consumes 50 per cent of Cauvery water reserved
for domestic use in Karnataka. As much as 49 per cent of this water supplied is
what is called "non-revenue water" or "unaccounted for
water" -- i.e., water lost in distribution -- according to the Bengaluru
Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) data.
"Inequitable supply to different parts
of the city -- ranging from one-third to three times the average per capita
daily supply -- makes this worse," Krishna Raj, associate professor at the
Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, and author of a
2013 paper on the city's water supply system, told IndiaSpend. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Bengaluru's water loss is the second-highest
among Indian metros: Kolkata leads at 50 per cent. The wastage figure for
Mumbai is 18 per cent, New Delhi, 26 per cent and Chennai, 20 per cent. Across
the world, cities lose only about 15 to 20 per cent of their supply, said the
ISEC study, which pegged Bengaluru's losses at 48 per cent three years ago.
Former BWSSB chairman, T.M. Vijaybhaskar,
admitted to a loss of about 46 per cent water at a conference in February 2016.
"Of 1,400 MLD (million litres per day) of water pumped to the city, 600
MLD goes to waste," he said. The
Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
The ISEC paper attributed the wastage to two
types of distributional losses: First, damages and leakages in the water supply
system and, second, unauthorised water connections. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
"Water leakages largely take place at
distribution mains, service pipes and stand posts and together account for 88.5
per cent of water spillover, the rest being low leakages at main valve, meter
joint stop valve, ferrule, air valve and others," the paper said.
"This huge loss is directly attributed to the water seepage at various
stages of supply." The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
Of the 270 thousand million cubic ft (TMC) of
Cauvery water allotted to Karnataka by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, Raj
estimated that, roughly, about 80 per cent is used for agriculture and industry
(down from over 90 per cent in 2007). This leaves about 20 per cent for rural
and urban domestic use, of which Bengaluru records the highest demand. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
The city receives about 19 TMC of Cauvery
water. Recently, the Karnataka State Urban Development Department provisionally
raised supply by an additional 10 TMC to meet the needs of 110 villages added
to the metropolitan area in 2007. A formal proposal to raise the city's water
supply to 30 TMC from the Cauvery basin has been forwarded to the central
government.
Sourced from a distance of 100 km, up to a
height of 540 m, the BWSSB spends nearly 60 per cent of its budget in pumping
water to the Bengaluru metropolitan region. With groundwater reserves
overexploited and polluted, and its other two ageing reservoirs -- the
120-year-old Heseraghatta and 83-year-old Thippegondanahalli of Cauvery's
Arkavathi tributary -- unreliable, Bengaluru is almost entirely dependent on the
disputed river. The Total Investment
& Insurance Solutions
The large water losses, which ISEC has
recorded for the last five years at least, offset any efforts to augment water
supply through various stages of Cauvery river water supply projects. Thus,
efforts to enhance per capita water availability to 150 litres per capita per
day (LPCD) to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) and Central Public Health
and Environmental Organisation (CPEEHO) standards remain unfulfilled. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
"After Stage IV Phase II of the Cauvery
Water Supply Scheme (CWSS) was commissioned recently, Bengaluru now receives
1,350 MLD of water daily," said Raj. "For the city's population of
8.5 million (Census 2011), this quantity officially raises per capita water
availability to 158.82 litres, which is more than sufficient to meet the WHO
and CPEEHO standards." The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
If unaddressed, the situation is only likely
to worsen. In nine years, the city's demand (currently 1,575 MLD) is estimated
to rise by 71 per cent, while the supply (currently 1,350 MLD) will rise only
by a third, thereby tripling the demand-supply gap, according to the ISEC study
of water demand and availability. The
Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
By 2031, Bengaluru's water supply will reach
its optimum level (2,070 MLD) and stay there while the city's water demands
rise further in the decades thereafter, widening the shortfall progressively,
showed BWSSB data. The Total Investment
& Insurance Solutions
"Whenever the demand for water exceeds
supply, urban water utilities quickly design water supply strategies, giving
little importance to demand control or management. Failure of water supply
authorities to incorporate demand-side factors in their policies leads to
'system-collapse' or 'institutional failure'," the 2013 paper said. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
"As per the Cauvery Water Disputes
Tribunal award, Karnataka receives lesser water per sq km -- 1 TMC of water is
distributed over 134 sq km here, whereas in Tamil Nadu, it is supplied to 116
sq km," Raj said. "Add to this, there is inefficiency and inequity in
Bengaluru's supply which must be addressed."The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
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