BENGALURU: The water crisis in Bengaluru is not exclusive to residents of areas on the city’s outskirts, but also within core areas — and the worst-hit are those living in independent houses.
The residents are complaining of reduced supply of Cauvery water and their borewells going either completely dry or giving lesser yield. Deputy Chief Minister, who is also Bengaluru Development Minister and a resident of upmarket Sadashivnagar, DK Shivakumar, too, had said the borewell in his house had dried up.
It was initially assumed that the water crisis was only affecting outer areas of the city like Mahadevapura, Bellandur, Varthur, Hoodi, KR Puram, Whitefield, and Rajarajeshwari Nagar, among others, but it is also affecting inner areas like Chamrajpet, Cottonpet, Hanumanthnagar, Vijaynagar and Uttarahalli.
While borewells on which they have relied are drying up, private water tankers are refusing to supply water to individual or independent houses, as they have not been on their regular customer list, mainly depending on their respective and now-dried-up borewells. Despite having water to supply, private tankers are mainly driven by their business economics to avoid supplying water to individual houses.
They prefer bulk consumers — including large apartment complexes and multiple dwelling units, which are also experiencing dried borewells — who are able to get private water tankers with just a call.
Erratic water supply from BWSSB has left residents of independent houses in a spot, to fend for themselves. “The Cauvery water supply is erratic. We used to get water at least four to five times a week, which has now reduced to twice a week. All the water reserves we have in the groundwater tank and overhead tank are exhausted. Our borewell has also gone dry. I have called multiple private water tankers and all of them say they cannot supply water and have to focus on their regular customers,” said Prakash Murugan, an Uttarahalli resident.
Even water supplied by the BWSSB in tankers and mobile tanks is not available in their areas. “Our borewell has gone dry as a neighbour drilled a deep borewell recently. We have public tanks in many parts of our area, but all of them are non-functional. BWSSB claims to supply water in tankers and temporary tanks. In our area, we do not find any,” said Hari Priya, a resident of Azad Nagar.
Many independent houses are at the mercy of nearby apartment complexes to cope with water shortage. Private water tanker suppliers that The New Indian Express spoke to, while requesting anonymity, said that people generally assume that they made huge money, but that is not the case. To deliver one load, we need Rs 250 towards fuel, we need to pay Rs 1,000 per driver per day, and we get a power bill, which crosses Rs 50,000 a month, apart from lakhs which go into drilling borewells.
“In a day, we can supply a maximum of eight loads. That too the place of delivery should be within 4 km. As our borewells have either gone dry, close to drying up, we have to drill, but the water level has gone too low. Throughout the year, we have regular customers like hotels, apartments, schools and offices. We have to focus on them… and then if we have time and water, we do supply to individual houses,” a supplier said.
BWSSB Chairman Ramprasat Manohar did not respond to calls or messages for his comments.