: Bengaluru Was Supposed to Run Out of Water by 2020. Heres Why That Didnt Happen #IndiaNEWS #Bengaluru A couple of years ago, BBC and the NITI Aayog, in separate reports, had made a grim prognosis

Bengaluru Was Supposed to Run Out of Water by 2020. Heres Why That Didnt Happen #IndiaNEWS #Bengaluru
A couple of years ago, BBC and the NITI Aayog, in separate reports, had made a grim prognosis for Bengaluru.
The city would run out of groundwater by 2020.
Bengaluru was listed as one among the 11 cities in the world to run out of groundwater. The list released by NITI Aayog was part of the Composite Water Management Index: A Tool for Water Management 2017.
Now that weve reached 2020, what is the situation that we are currently in? Have we run out of water, or are we close?
We spoke to experts in the field to get to the brass tacks.
Dr Hita Unnikrishnan, former Assistant Professor at the TransDisciplinary University, and a post-doctoral research associate at Azim Premji University whose doctoral research focussed on the histories of urban water commons within Bengaluru and Dr Kshithij Urs, former executive director of the Greenpeace India who is currently an adjunct professor at the National Law School of India, Bengaluru.
What happened over the years with regards to the water situation?

Bengalurus water usage was close to 900 million litres per day (MLD) in 2007, which has now increased to 1, 450 million litres per day from the Cauvery. However, the city remains to be one of the fastest-growing metropolises in the country.
The foundation of Bengalurus tank system was laid in the 4th century CE. They tapped into the elevation gradient of the city, and these natural depressions were converted into reservoirs which were filled up during the rains. The excess water would flow into the next reservoir. So up until the mid 18th century, the people used these lakes as their sources of water. The water was drawn from the lakes during the monsoon, and when they dried up in the summer, they relied on the open well system which was recharged by the groundwater, explains Dr Hita Unnikrishnan.
This was also the period when Bengaluru started being referred to as the Pensioners Paradise and it was also considered to be very conducive by the European population because of the weather. This led to a sudden increase in the population and infrastructure, and the tank system was not able to meet the citys water needs, she adds.
Dr Hitha explains how the infrastructure development during that period covered up several channels interconnecting these lakes to make way for roads. Those engineers parallelly tried to deepen the lakes as well and eventually started looking for external resources.
The city first tried to transport water from Hebbal to Bengaluru Pete, which didnt work and finally we resorted to drawing water from the Cauvery, and that is the core problem. We learned to source water from far away and neglected the water we can conserve within the city, she explains.

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