I want to start by telling you a little about myself. I am just a regular corporate citizen. My family moved to Whitefield a little over 5 years ago. As time went by, I grew increasingly concerned about our overall water situation. All signs were around me – to be noticed and to be enacted upon! The frothing smelly lake, the water tankers, the super-advanced methods being used for water treatment across all communities, Cauvery or no Cauvery, water borne diseases and mosquitoes – and ominous warnings about the possible 2023 Bangalore evacuation because of lack of water.

Throughout the year – I would see the ubiquitous water tanker and think – why are we getting our water from miles away for our regular consumption?

From where are they getting these tankers? Somebody within driving distance has water to spare and we need to buy it from them? And just how do these vendors justify large amount of transport related leakages? Do these water tankers give a certificate of water quality?

Then what you see during the rains is a watery mess! Floods happen really fast –  and water is unable to drain out. Why are we water logged and flooded on our main street? Where are the storm water drains? Don’t they function? Should the big vents lining the roads be filled with sewage? What happened to the famous Rajakaluves of Bangalore?

As I got more and more interested, I started learning more. Did you know that borewell technology did not exist in India in the 1960s – but now I see those large borewell drilling equipment everywhere. These are called super rigs.

A few years ago they used to hit water at 200 ft or so, now they are going as deep as 1000 ft to get anything. And the quality of water is totally suspect. Why is ground water deteriorating in quality?

Water is not as available as it used to be and it is not completely benign. As an example, in my community we felt a growing need to treat water –to prevent water related issues. Everything – from our pipelines to our appliances to our health can get affected.

V Balasubramanian, the former Additional Chief Secretary of Karnataka said that there are over 300,000 borewells in Bangalore city alone – and the ground water drawn is almost three and a half times the water available to recharge the same area!

This means that we keep taking and taking – without giving back! How can this be sustainable? Does this seem like sheer injustice to you? Somebody is not thinking this through!

So what next? Keep in touch to hear more thoughts.