Water crisis in Bangalore
The state government is planning to divide the water supply proportionately to the city as the water levels in Kabini and Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) dams went down. Bangalore was hit by drought last year, which resulted in the depletion of water levels in Cauvery basin reservoirs.
From November 2012, new areas of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike started receiving water supply from Cauvery stage IV phase II project. Around 13,667 households in Byatarayanapura, KR Puram, Dasarahalli and Bomannahalli are the beneficiaries.
At present, Bangalore gets water every alternative day, which is kind of a rationing. Hence, any further rationing would merely suggest increasing the non-supply water days.
The present water supply in Bangalore city is 900 MLD while the city demands 1,683 MLD (million litres per day). From Cauvery it draws 810 MLD of water while the rest comes from TG Halli and other sources. After the completion of Cauvery II phase IV stage the water supply is expected to increase to 1,310 MLD.
However, Karnataka government has promised to supply enough drinking water for Bangalore, Mysore and other towns dependent on Cauvery. Water resource officials, agricultural officials and engineers held a meeting to discuss the measures to be taken to ensure adequate water supply to the cities and towns in the Cauvery basin.
As of now, the KRS and Kabini reservoirs have a total of 18.309 tmc of water which is sufficient to meet the drinking water requirements for another five months, according to Water resources minister Basavaraj Bommai. Of this, 8.3 tmc is a dead storage and 10.05 is live storage. The minimum inflow into Kabini and KRS is estimated at 3.5 tmc.
Every month, Bangalore city needs 1.5 tmc of water and it would require 7.5 tmc of water for the next five months. Channapatna, Ramanagaram, Mysore, Mandya, and other towns in the basin require 3,5 tmc of water for next five months. They are planning to manage the drinking water requirement with the existing storage and inflows.
The meeting espoused five solutions to ensure the drinking water supply to the towns and the cities during summer. The committee would submit a report with recommendations to the water resources and BWSSB ministers for action.
The committee is planning to utilise the dead storage for drinking water purpose. Water resources minister said the machinery utilized for pumping water from dead storage would be upgraded in a fortnight. The government would monitor consumption to reduce the usage and curtail the wastage of water, during the summer. BWSSB minister S Suresh Kumar requested the citizens not to panic and instead co-operate with judicious use of water.
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