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Written By chetana kolli - 10 March, 2009

Bangalore Water Citizen Reports groundwater RWH Borewells

According to officials from Department of Mines and Geology, the groundwater situation is in a critical condition in Bangalore. The situation has worsened in the last three years. The average annual rainfall in the district is only 600 mm to 700 mm per year. Because of the drought in 2001, 2002 and 2003, groundwater recharge has been very low!! ******This is alarming*******.

I wonder why our government or our educated bangaloreans want to do nothing about it. Yes the government probably has a rule that Rain water harvesting(RWH) facility is compulsory in apartments and so on.... but who is monitoring it????  The apartment I live in does not implement RWH... Its a shame that the governing body is unable to enforce this..

Chennai, one of the hottest cities in South India had faced a situation worse than what Bangalore is witnessing today. However the then chief minister put her foot down and made it mandatory for all house holds to install RWH systems in their homes. A deadline was given - failing which the residents would be void of electricity & water connection.. Now...This is what I call a RULE. Ofcourse, the people of Chennai are throughly enjoying the benefits of this decision made by the lady of the State "Hail CM-Jayalalitha"

ooooooh....We are ashamed to use ideas other states have implemented. Huh this is Karnataka! we are a educated lot, we belong to the silicon valley of India.... ooooh aaaaah.................. If this is the attitude the government & we carry, sorry, we are not heading towards progression.

I urge everyone who is reading this to give it a thought. Read more about Rain Water Harvesting and the BENEFITS we all will reap out of it. Again, this does not matter if one house in a colony implements it, its got be be every house. Please educate as many people on the positives of RWH implementation.

Cheers for a better Bangalore!!!

"We should feedback what we recieve from Nature"

COMMENTS

It is useful and the right thing to do

idontspam - 10 March, 2009 - 18:00

Try this site... http://www.rainwaterclub.org/

I have it in my house. I harvest and recharge the groundwater. You can choose to use it for consumption after filtering which would be wise if you are short of water in your area.

rainwater harvesting & BWSSB

blrpraj - 10 March, 2009 - 18:11

I believe there was a circular that BWSSB will not sanction fresh connections without rain water harvesting. I had to google around to find that article -

http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/03/stories/2007060308500400.htm

I found an interesting video on youtube about it -

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daouoJiB4uw]


BWSSB itself has a page devoted to this on it's site -


http://www.bwssb.org/rainwater_harvesting.html

 

 

important issue

silkboard - 11 March, 2009 - 03:13

Thanks for the post Chetana. This (ground water management, water supply, distribution as well) is such an important issue for city's growth, but doesn't get the coverage and attention it deserves.

Do we have good studies to understand the magnitude of the problem?

  • Ground water table indicators for 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and now?
  • Percentage of households that draw water from ground vs those that depend on piped supply
  • Quality of ground water in diff areas
  • Quality of BWSSB's supply in diff areas?
  • Level of enforcement of RWH legislation? Who is required to enforce it? BWSSB itself, BBMP, or pass the buck back to the city police (I doubt).

Unless someone spots scantily clad women swimming inside BWSSB's pipes or lakes, I don't think mainstream media is going to take interest and track all of city's water management activities for us.

water issues

jennypinto - 11 March, 2009 - 03:46

great to see a discussion on water is one of the first on the election site!! for those interested, there is a small hub of activity in water issues, in bangalore that is quite active . you can get a lot of info from, and even join www.rainwaterclub.org vishwanath who founded and leads it is a water conservationist is a fount of information and knowledge & the most approachable and helpful person you can find. harvesting rainwater is the easy, and so is re-cylcing, whether in apts or single house, even post-construction. all it needs is a recognition of the magnitude of the problem and a will to be part of the solution!

I totally agree with you.

shekhar_mittal - 10 March, 2009 - 17:43

I totally agree with you. But I feel there is a dearth of information as far as the installation and impact of Rain water harvesting is concerned. How much is the cost of installing such system? Do we have some figures as to the impact it makes?

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