‘City May Face Water Crisis by 2020’

The cabinet’s decision to bring additional 10 tmc feet of water to the city from the Cauvery might not be feasible as the government will have to over come legal hurdles, said former additional chief secretary V Balasubramaniam.

At an interactive session on “Crisis of water management - Likely disaster for Bangalore City,” organised in the city on Saturday,  Balasubramanian said, “The state government has proposed to allocate 10 tmc feet of water to the city from the unallocated share of water. The other states might also seek their share.”

He says the proposals to pump water from Linganamakki reservoir is not sensible as the power generation at Linganamakki would be affected if water is pumped to the city and at least 650 MW power would be required every month to pump water to the city.

“It might be very difficult to pump water from Ethinahole and other rivers that originate from western ghats as the environment ministry does not permit any activities in the ghats. Therefore, water will become very scarce in the city by 2020 and we are  staring at a impending water crisis,” he added.

Criticising the government’s plans to generate 12 lakh IT jobs in the city by 2020, he said, “The government proposes to acquire 14,500 acres for this purpose and it is estimated that nearly 70 lakh people would migrate to the city. At least 750 MLD of water would be required to meet the needs of the increasing population and around 1,800 tonnes of additional garbage would be generated, which could lead to disaster.”

On the quality of water being supplied, he said, “According to the data from the Public Health Science Institute, 59 per cent of water supplied to the city is contaminated and Ecoli is found in 19 per cent of the water.”

Former minister Suresh Kumar said, “By effectively harvesting rain water in the open areas and by promoting reuse of water, the city can generate enough water to postpone the implementing of one more Cauvery drinking water project by a few years.”