Remember your middle school history class when you first started to learn about ancient civilizations? They all began, as most great world cities do, along a river or some kind of water body. Delhi, India’s capitol, has the Yamuna River; Kolkata is traversed by the Hooghly River. Well, curiously, a river does not run through Bangalore. Sitting near the highest points of the Deccan Plateau, there are several drainage channels within three major watersheds that lead to the Akravathy and Kauvery Rivers.
Pushkaram Sept 2017
For several hundreds of years, inhabitants of the Bangalore area dammed up the drainage channels to create “lakes” or irrigation tanks that, in addition to tapping groundwater (borewells), served as the water supply to the city. Most of the city’s lakes are between 200-300 years old. Some are estimated to be 600-700 years old. Today, the lakes no longer supply water but instead have either 1) dried up because water was diverted elsewhere, 2) became a major source of effluent drainage and therefore highly polluted and/or 3) become an aesthetically attractive urban amenity for land development around the lakes.
Ulsoor Lake Sept 2017
The main source of water comes from either ground water tanks or from water pumped up from the Kauvery River which runs east to west about 100km south of Bangalore, but more importantly, is nearly 2000 feet below the city in terms of altitude. So in addition to any natural rainfall that might replete the groundwater supply, residents must connect to the city’s water supply to make up any gaps in demand.. For residential areas built even as late as 20 years ago which were mostly dependent on groundwater, the declining supply from the borewells has forced retrofitting to access water pumped from the Kauvery. As demand for retrofits increases, residents are having to pay a fee much higher than the stated on the BSSWB website.
For more detailed analysis of the role of the lakes and the Kauvery on the water, land, and ecosystems in Bangalore, I highly recommend this wonderful “Rediscovering the Commons” interview with Dr. Balakrishnan from the Indian Institute of Human Settlements.
References
- Master Plan for Bangalore 2015 “An Integrated Approach towards a Vibrant International City“
- Database/Information for Preparation of the 2031 Master Plan for Bengaluru (Bangalore)
- Krishnachandran Balakrishnan (Spring 2016). Heterogeneity within Indian cities: Methods for empirical analysis. Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley