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20/03/24 09:29 AM IST

Water crisis in Bengaluru

In News
  • An acute drinking water crisis in Bengaluru has been creating international headlines for the past few days.
Causes for water shortage
  • During last year’s monsoon, Karnataka received rainfall that was 18 per cent below normal, the least since 2015. Even the post-monsoon period did not bring much rain to the state.
  • Like most other parts of the country, Karnataka receives a bulk of its annual rainfall during the monsoon, and it is this water that fills up the reservoirs and recharges the aquifers.
  • A rainfall deficit in the monsoon months almost inevitably results in water stress.
  • Karnataka was not the only state to receive below-normal rainfall last monsoon.
  • Kerala, for example, finished the season with a 34 per cent deficit. Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh had almost 25 per cent deficit each.
  • South India has a very different kind of aquifer system. It is very rocky. The aquifers don’t hold a lot of water.
  • They empty out quickly, and they also get recharged pretty quickly. What this means is that groundwater resources are not able to sustain for very long in the event of a prolonged dry spell.
  • This is very different from the aquifers in north India, which have a much better capacity to hold water.
  • This is why Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which got even less rainfall last year than Karnataka, have not seen similar water scarcity.
Falling reservoir levels
  • Another direct consequence of low rainfall has been the relatively low level of water in reservoirs.
  • Karnataka reservoirs are currently holding water at only 26 per cent of their full capacity, which is at least ten percentage points lower than what is expected at this time of the year.
  • Instead of the nearly 8.8 billion cubic meters of water that is expected in Karnataka’s reservoirs at this time of the year, only 6.5 billion cubic meters is currently available. And this is depleting steadily.
  • Other states in south India are facing the same problem, with Telangana being in a far worse situation.
  • But the demands in Karnataka are different, and its reservoirs are depleting faster than those of the neighbouring states.
  • Clearly, the state is being forced to draw more from the reserves even before the start of the summer season.
  • Roughly about half of Bengaluru gets its drinking water through piped supply.
  • The remaining half mostly uses groundwater for drinking purposes.
  • The areas that have piped supply are not facing much disruption because this water is coming from the reservoirs.
  • In these kinds of situations, when the rainfall has been scanty and reservoir levels are low, the tendency of the governments is to prioritise drinking water needs, especially in the urban areas.
  • It is in parts of Bengaluru that are dependent on groundwater that the drinking water problem seems most acute.
Source- Indian Express

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