Water scarcity and contamination to hit Bangalore badly
Due to water scarcity, contamination of water and diseases, the government of Karnataka may have to vacate half of Bangalore in the next ten years.
According to sources, lab results at the Public Health Institution and the Department of Mines and Geology of the state government revealed that 52 percent of the borewell water and 59 percent of tap water in Bangalore is not drinkable and contain 8.4 percent and 19 percent E.coli bacteria, respectively.
At least half of the Bangalore’s ground water is contaminated with sewage water. Today, less than 200 of the 1000 lakes remain and are no more than sewage tanks. The sewage water contaminates the ground water and gets into the borewells.
It is said that only 30 percent of the sewage is treated by the sewage treatment plants and the rest flows into the existing lakes.
All you can see in Bangalore is construction activity. The city’s population rose from 53 lakh in 2001 to 87 lakh in 2011. At present, the rate of growth is likely to touch one crore by 2016.
But unfortunately, the amount of water in the Cauvery basin has not increased by the same proportion. There is a huge gap between demand and supply of water from Cauvery basin.
Most of the borewells have gone deeper even up to 1000 feet and some of the borewells have run dry. The greater fear is that even this polluted water may not be available after 2018. Moreover, out of 18 lakh properties, hardly 44,000 houses in the Garden city have rain water harvesting structures.
Almost all the residential properties in Bangalore are depended on tankers. In its report in January 2010, the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and Development (ABIDe) Task Force suggested rejuvenating the lakes in the region as a part of Bangalore Water 2020 blueprint.
It is also said that focus should be on recycling of water and a target should be set for the quality of water that can be supplied from lakes by 2012. The Integrated Water Management project may set 500MLD of water as the initial target.
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