BENGALURU: The Supreme Court’s verdict marginally in favour of Karnataka was influenced significantly by global status Bengaluru and its growing water requirements. The apex court allocated 4.75 tmcft of water, which is nearly 16 per cent of total 30 tmcft water demanded by the Karnataka, considering the domestic and industrial requirement for the city projected for year 2025.According to the judgement, 4.75 tmcft was awarded for drinking and domestic purposes for the whole city.
“We are disposed to think so, for the city of Bengaluru, as an evident phenomenon, has burgeoned over the years and has grown today into a progressively sophisticated, sprawling, vibrant and a much aspired seat of intellectual excellence particularly in information technology and commercial flourish,” the SC said in Friday’s verdict.
While justifying the allocation of water awarded to Bengaluru, the Supreme Court gave following reasons in support of its verdict: “It has transformed into a nerve centre of contemporaneous significance and its population is daily on the rise, thus, registering an ever-enhancing demand for all civic amenities. The requirements of its dependent population as a whole for drinking and other domestic purposes, therefore, cannot justifiably, in the prevailing circumstances, be truncated to their prejudice only for consideration of its physical location in the context of the river basin.”
The apex court considered that Benglauru cannot be removed from the requirements of its inhabitants, particularly when it related to allocation of water for domestic purposes to meet their daily errands. “It will be inconceivable to have an artificial boundary and deny the population the primary need of drinking water,” the apex court said.
The court held the global status that Bengaluru had attained and appreciated “the doctrine of equitable proportionality on the bedrock of pressing human needs.”“It was declared as well that drinking water needs of human beings and animals should be the first charge on any available water. We are, thus, of the considered opinion that the allocation of water for drinking and domestic purposes for the entire city of Bengaluru has to be accounted for,” the apex court said.