Know your Country

Water, Water Everywhere, but most of it is Wasted.

- Alison Saldanha

As Karnataka continues its legal battle over the Cauvery, the state’s capital — almost entirely dependent on the river — wastes half the water it receives, according to an India Spend 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.

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% of Cauvery water reserved for domestic use in Karnataka. As much as 49% 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 India Spend.