[DriverLess]

I was inspired by the Bangalore Gated Community thread to write this. The most important/basic amenity is water and many folks are oblivious to how that is managed. I believe Bangalore is on the brink of a severe water crisis. Many people do not see this coming, because they pay maintenance and either BWSSB, borewell or tankers fill the water sump. I’m writing this based on my experience of living in Bangalore for the last 20+ years. I’m pretty sure this is the case with most non-CBD areas.

Let us look at different aspects of this problem.

Sources of water available in Bangalore

• Cauvery

Apart from CBD areas, this is out of reach for most suburbs and apartments. Everyone knows about Cauvery water sharing issue and with rains/weather becoming erratic, this is only going to get worse. New Cauvery reach (phase) projects are either going to be just on paper or will never deliver water (may lay pipes!). Cauvery catchment areas themselves had severe rain deficits this year.

• Ground/Borewell

This gets sold as a solution/silver bullet to all problems. Every new project claims they have dug X number of borewells and have hit water at 1000ft/1500ft and so on. Due to exploitation (multiple borewells in a very small geographical area) even if a new borewell initially gives a good amount of water it is only short lived. It will typically go dry in 3-4 years. As you dig deeper, hardness increases. It has become typical for borewell water to reach 1500 to 2000 ppm during summer months.

• Tanker

Unregulated / Unorganized. No one has any clue on the source of water. I’ve seen them fill tanker from highly polluted lakes and most of the apartments are at 100% mercy of this. There have been attempts by some startups to make this organized, but that has not yielded any results.

• Rainwater

Usual Bangalore rains are of heavy downpour for a short duration (30 - 45 minutes) type. This causes several practical challenges with respect to rainwater harvesting. Ground cannot absorb sudden rush of water and most of it goes wasted as run off. Heavy containerization is also a factor in not being able to recharge ground water levels. Most houses/apartments just do lip service to capturing and using rainwater. Loss of lakes means there are very little avenues for this run-off to recharge the groundwater table.

Typical household water usage:

25% of the water is washing
25% flush
25% for bath and personal hygiene.
10% for kitchen
5% is drinking / food.
10% miscellaneous

Reduce / Reuse and Recycle

• Where can we reduce water usage?

Use smaller buckets and smaller mugs. Wash utensils at once with water in a small vessel instead of using running water. Reduce water flow in most of taps and fix water leakage immediately. Educate children about the importance of water.

• How can we reuse water?

Invest in STP and reuse of grey water for flush in apartments. Many apartments don’t do this or just do it for regulation's sake. Owners have also insisted on using fresh water for flush. This happens because the STP process does not have good investment and maintenance. Capture waste water from RO/Filters. The reject-water from RO has higher dissolved salts, but it is better than input water from all other parameters as the filters have captured many impurities. This water can be used for washing utensils, watering plants etc. And even relatively small houses, who cannot let the water permeate into the ground, can capture rainwater in tanks. One can capture 500ltrs of water with 30 minutes of rain with 500sqft terrace. If you use organic washing products, you can reuse waste water from your washing machine and use it for cleaning outside the house.

Recycling is possible at large scale. Many lakes have become dumping ground for untreated sewerage and successive governments are not interested nor willing to look at large water treatment plants.

Innovations

Like Peter Diamandis says, I believe we can look at this problem from an abundance perspective rather than as a scarcity. New technology can certainly play a role improving this for future generations. Waterless washing, atmospheric water generator (AWG), technological improvement in waste water treatment, cost effective desalination etc can play a big role in improving the access to clean water.

Final Thoughts

Each and every one of us can make small changes to manage this precious resource better. Average Indian consumption per capita per day is around 130 - 150 Ltrs. As our population has increased, but the supply remained the same - I think per capita is now hovering around 100 Lts / day in metros. Personally, in our household, we have been able to reduce it to about 50 Lts / per day per person. If you can measure it, you can reduce it.

My humble request is to spread awareness about this topic. Reduce consumption and reuse when possible. Develop/improve Lakes in your area. Strictly implement rainwater harvesting and borewell recharge projects. Invest in adequate size of STP for water consumption capacity of your apartment.

I would love inputs from everyone on what else we can do to become sustainable with respect to water.

[Rajeevraj]

Extremely relevant thread. Most people in large cities especially in the newer areas don't know or care as to where water comes from. This is especially acute in Bangalore. Pretty much all apartment complexes in most areas of Bangalore-especially the IT belt of ORR, Sarjapur Road, Whitefield have to heavily rely on water tankers. I know of complexes that need 60-70 10,000 liter tankers a day. There will soon be a day that even when you are willing to pay for it, there is no water to buy.

What really despairs me is that this precious commodity is not metered in large complexes. Most flats have 3-4 inlets and builders rarely install any kind of metering systems. Although there are technologies now that enable multi inlet metering, retrofitting is a hard job and getting consensus on it is next to impossible. Which means this precious commodity is used for free and hence there is lot of wastage. In my community I had taken ownership of putting together a proposal for installing meters and even managed to get the approval from all owners, but unfortunately covid happened just after and then the plan just died. If water metering is made mandatory and fool proof for multistoried complexes, that it self will result in huge reduction in usage.

The other major area is the establishment of the STP plants with water reuse. As mentioned by the OP, it is mostly namesake and the apartments that have flush reuse are very limited. Even there, if there is a small change in color also, people are up in arms complaining and asking to use fresh water. Our complex fortunately has a proper treated water reuse for flushing which helps save a lot of water.

What has given Bangalore some extended life in this aspect is the fact that there were significant rains during 2020-22 which helped push up ground water levels. Usage was also on the lower side during covid times. But 2023 has been a bad year and need to see what will happen this year.

Not sure of the situation in other cities, but I do not think it can be much better. For readers of this post, I would request to pause a moment and see if you know where the water comes from in your place of stay. Especially if you stay in a large complex in a metro city. If not, please find out- source, quality, cost. That itself may be a sobering thought and trigger some steps to save some water.

[ashivas89]

Another avoidable avenue where at least 40 litres (2 buckets) are wasted per household per day: Car washing.

We see people getting their cars washed every day with at least 2 buckets of water wasted per car per day in our society which has a fully covered (practically indoor) car park.

I get my car washed once or max twice a month professionally and then let it be.


__________________________________________________ _________________________

Our reliance on water tankers came down to Zero even during the dry months once our STP plant became operational and we started RWH (the rainwater is also collected in tanks, with surplus going into a borewell recharge pit). We have both Cauvery and Borewell as as our water sources. However after a whole host of PG facilities suddenly popped up next door (6-7 floor buildings in a land parcel 1/3 the size of ours, housing 3X as many people), our borewell yield has reduced and for the first time in 2 years we had to order tankers when Cauvery water supply was sporadic.

Get permission for a residential layout for independent houses, but build PGs over the whole area illegally (to house a number of people an order of magnitude or two higher) , drill 3-4X the number of borewells sanctioned and drain all ground water overnight. Lather, rinse, repeat. We are all doomed.

[shankar.balan]

Bangalore should have implemented mandatory Rain Water Harvesting 20 years ago like Chennai did.

It is terrible to see how many houses in the neighbourhood waste water by pouring it on the road and around the house to ‘lay the dust’. And of course people using hosepipes to clean their cars and the cleaners just letting water go to waste.

If one tries to tell them the cleaners/ house owners get militant/ defensive and say it is my borewell so what is your problem…and similar stuff.

We as a race are a short sighted and selfish lot, only seeking nirvana for the self and to the blazes with everyone else.

But the Apocalypse will come and I wonder what will happen when there is no water to be had. Someone said the next war will be about water. Going the way we are, it seems very probable.

[condor]

Most folks dont know the value of water. Back in mid 80's bangalore, the situation was so bad that we used to wake up at 2.30 am to collect water. By-pass the meter (which helped increase the water pressure /flow a bit), collect in a plate/thali, transfer that to a bucket, and then to the tank.

Pains me when I see people pumping water from the borewells in their houses and washing the road in front of their houses. And our neighbor lets at least 500 litres of water run into the drain every day (some crazy setup of tanks in their house). Not the kind to even hear anyone out, listening to sense/logic beyond him.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Bangalore should have implemented mandatory Rain Water Harvesting 20 years ago like Chennai did.

People did because Jayalalitha held a sword over their heads. Someone should do it in Bangalore.

[am1m]

I got a rainwater harvesting setup done at our house a long time ago. I admit, I did it only because the government back then had announced they would make it mandatory. So got a very basic setup done. Pipes to channel rainwater from the flat terrace to a single sintex tank and through a very basic mesh filter.

Now I wish I had installed a better-planned setup. Even with Bangalore rains, that single tank is more than enough to take care of all the outside water needs. We're the only house on our street that got it done and now we're the only house that doesn't need to draw the (extremely) hard ground water and don't need to call tankers.

On the contrary, most houses have added floors and rented them out. Adding to the stress on the groundwater. Easy to see how much more deeper each new house has to drill to get water for borewells these days.

If I had gotten a better harvesting setup with better filters, more tanks, provision for groundwater recharge, could have saved more of the BWSSB supply too. And imagine if we do this at a neighborhood level!

But no, no one cares. More flats, more tankers. To wash bigger cars. Let's see how many crores all of this property is worth when the water runs out.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by DriverLess

I would love inputs on what else we can do to save water

With any natural resource, the onus lies on those who have the noble intent to save. Whatever I'm putting down is based on experience.

1. Water aerators on taps - not the ones that currently come on all taps, but the ones similar to the ones in airline loos, which dispense just the right amount of water like out of a shower head.
2. No liquid soap except the ones that dispense like foam. I've seen that liquid soap uses about 5x water than normal soap.
3. Those in independent houses can definitely set up a crude rain water collection system, route at least the water from the terrace to a filter bed that has varying particle sizes of sand and route that water to a well/Sump created for this purpose).
4. No hoses please - for those who practice DIY of cleaning one own car(s), use no more than 7 liters of water. I have an ex-Mobil Delvac Super can that holds 7 liters, and clean my car in two rounds viz. 3+3 liters max (including the wheels). This again may go up a bit if the car is dirtier after a wet drive.
5. I don't have stats around this but with some self control, a shower saves a lot of water over the conventional mug and bucket.
6. Lot of water gets wasted in heating via a solar water heater system. I visit many guest houses during travel and see at least 20 liters going down before warm water arrives. The lost water can be recovered if routed appropriately.
7. Washing utensils - the aerator arrangement helps but a hose plus faucet is even better.
8. Use less water when wetting the entry to the house before the traditional kolam comes on.

Ideas which I haven't needed to implement but which might work

1. In apartments where water is brackish, a water softener cum filter for the washing machine and the flush tanks would do a lot of good - in preventing water loss due to leaking/passing of components.
2. If no.1 above can be implemented for the whole building by installing at the pump discharge, very good.

[parambyte]

Great thread.
I have always felt sad about the millions of liters of water washed down toilets because of a simple toilet full. Each flus is roughly 10 liters. Multiply the number of times you use it, by number of people by number of days in a year! It’s crazy.

- public places like offices, cafés, restaurants, malls, movie theatres, parks etc can switch to waterless urinals to save millions of liters per year
- Can we do away with private building swimming pools? And have community pools instead? Those who really really want to swim can use community pools, just like people use gyms or gold courses.
- No washing of building driveways with a hose.
- work overall to reduce atmospheric dust so we need to clean cars, driveways and homes less frequently. This is difficult considering we are a country under perpetual construction and reconstruction. But having a dust free environment will really help.
- can someone invent low water usage washing machines and dish washers? We pride ourselves on our engineering graduates, can someone come up with something?
- other suggestions people have given are great too. Let’s stop choking lakes and rivers. Let’s harvest rainwater in every building.

If we start now, we can safely conserve our water resources.

[vj_torqueaddict]

I was born and raised in a place where water was and is a scarcity. We used to get municipal water once in 14 days. Had to ration water (we still do) carefully. Store every bucket in the house with water to last 14 days. Even a head bath is calculated. Lol.

I moved to Bangalore for work, I was shocked to see people using hoses to clean the compound wall, car etc. I simply could not digest this culture shock. Then I got to know Bangalore has cauvery water released everyday to households. Hence people don't worry. But me being raised in a place where water was treated as expensive commodity simply couldn't understand what was going on.

Thankfully my house has cauvery connection , and the bill has never crossed the minimum price. Even the guy who comes every month to give us the bill jokes that we don't use water at all.

Yes, Bangalore needs to wake up before it's too late.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by am1m

I
On the contrary, most houses have added floors and rented them out. Adding to the stress on the groundwater. Easy to see how much more deeper each new house has to drill to get water for borewells these days.

But no, no one cares. More flats, more tankers. To wash bigger cars. Let's see how many crores all of this property is worth when the water runs out.

Our place has a 150 feet borewell which ran dry 12 years ago. We ve managed with the twice or thrice weekly supply of Cauvery water ever since.

Every other house in the neighbourhood has dug down to 1200-1500-1800 feet. The entire water table has changed. This despite having a large expanse of Armed forces land next door, which acts as a natural catchment/ recharge area for ground water.

And there are lots of sizes of sites, 600,1200, 2400, 3000,4000 sq ft, etc. On all of these sites nowadays, there are different kinds of multi-storeyed apartments. This adds massively to the pressure on the ground water for sure.

Even this morning while walking my Pet I had a small run in with someone on one of the surrounding streets. He was ‘sending it’ with a hose pipe and had let it lie on the ground when he went inside to get something.

I tried to point out the waste. But all I got in return were some serious grumbly rumbles. What to do? I walked on rueing the situation in my head, just as I am doing now in writing.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Our place has a 150 feet borewell which ran dry 12 years ago.

I am sure there will be many properties with such defunct borewells. Just connect one rain water run off pipe from your terrace to this borewell. Plenty of rain water will go in during good spells. If everyone who has defunct borewells does this, it will be very good for ground water levels.

[Gaur]

Happened to read this article today morning.

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/k...undrum-2847211

Though i no longer stay in Bengaluru but having stayed there for almost 8years the poor water management/borewell dependency/tanker mafia was the biggest concern for me.

Water being such an important resource cannot be just left at the mercy of tanker mafias.

However one the biggest disappointments i had was from the attitude of the common folks (read well paid I.T folks) who felt water is just a phone call (water tanker) away.

Being born and bought up in Mumbai which touchwood has a relatively much better water supply system i found barring a few the attitude of the government and common folks in Bengaluru to be apathetic towards this issue.
I mean how can people be soo carefree about something as crucial as water, how would you rely on tankers to provide uninterrupted water when the city is paralyzed e.g riot/flood.

With the mainstreaming of Work from Home/Native i felt Bengaluru would be saved from the burden it has to bear but now since for various reasons people are being called back to the city i think the day zero many turn into a reality in a few years.

[gopa99]

I absolutely love this thread, I am a big fan of finding ways and means to reduce water consumption. In fact at my society in Bangalore I was instrumental in deploying the water meters for all flats(80 flats). This task we executed in 2016 after about 3 years of discussions and arguments at our association meetings! We had to collect close to 20K per flat and given the fact that our society was then about 7 years old, made things not easy. The magical result was that once we got the meters installed the water consumption of our society (from tankers and borewell) dropped by 30 percent.
This, in my opinion is a must do for everyone staying in a gated society or apartment where water sourcing and consumption is shared. We got digital meters installed which had a functional application on our phones that gave live feeds for every resident about water consumed (or wasted) as well as historical analysis on consumption.

[DriverLess]

I'm really happy to see many BHPians who are concerned about the issue and want to take action. Like many responses show, it really hard to find people who care, let alone willing to take actions to make a positive impact.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

What really despairs me is that this precious commodity is not metered in large complexes.

Thank you for raising this. Adding meters to existing apartment brings opposition from owners who until that day did not have to care about their usage or rather were exploiting it at the cost of other owners. Metering is something every new apartment should install for each flat. It should become a legal requirement, otherwise it is not a fancy feature for builders to add when other builders/apartments can get away without one.

Originally Posted by ashivas89

Another avoidable avenue where at least 40 litres (2 buckets) are wasted per household per day: Car washing.

Yes. And one should use Car cover when car is not in use for more than few days.

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Bangalore should have implemented mandatory Rain Water Harvesting 20 years ago like Chennai did.

Under current conditions, if any *new* house/apartment does not have RWH then it is like not having electricity. Old buildings/aparments will find it difficult to retrofit RWH, but not impossible.

Originally Posted by condor

Most folks dont know the value of water. Back in mid 80's bangalore, the situation was so bad that we used to wake up at 2.30 am to collect water.

I've heard these stories. But back then Borewell permissions were hard to come by. Now most new borewells are dug without permission or by corrupt means.

Originally Posted by am1m

4. No hoses please - for those who practice DIY of cleaning one own car(s), use no more than 7 liters of water. I have an ex-Mobil Delvac Super can that holds 7 liters, and clean my car in two rounds viz. 3+3 liters max (including the wheels). This again may go up a bit if the car is dirtier after a wet drive.

Yes. Low pressure hose is one of the most inefficient ways to clean. Imagine using low pressure hose after lathering oneself during bath.

Originally Posted by parambyte

- can someone invent low water usage washing machines and dish washers? We pride ourselves on our engineering graduates, can someone come up with something?
- other suggestions people have given are great too. Let’s stop choking lakes and rivers. Let’s harvest rainwater in every building.

There are low water usage washing machines / dish washers. But I don't see anything beyond marketing in terms of technology. I would love to know more. On the same lines, we need innovation in no/low water flush - like airline toilet. But the sewerage system cannot deal with no water based waste transport. We are still stuck using what Romans invented on the infrastructure side.

Situation with Lakes is really sad. People like Anand ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anand_Malligavad ) have shown that even few like minded folks can make a difference. Read this news article in NY Times about him - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/w...clamation.html

Originally Posted by vj_torqueaddict

Then I got to know Bangalore has cauvery water released everyday to households.

We should ration water; But I think it won't be popular decision for anybody in the powers to take it.

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Our place has a 150 feet borewell which ran dry 12 years ago. .

Originally Posted by Gansan

I am sure there will be many properties with such defunct borewells. Just connect one rain water run off pipe from your terrace to this borewell. Plenty of rain water will go in during good spells. If everyone who has defunct borewells does this, it will be very good for ground water levels.

I've have not found good source regarding side effects of doing this. Some people claim that ground water table will get contaminated if we do this. I would love to know more regarding this.

Originally Posted by Gaur

However one the biggest disappointments i had was from the attitude of the common folks (read well paid I.T folks) who felt water is just a phone call (water tanker) away.

Most people think water is phone call away in Bangalore and it is not restricted to one profession. We should add *water* to - "there are some things money can't buy".

Originally Posted by gopa99

I was instrumental in deploying the water meters for all flats(80 flats).

Kudos to you. Believe me it is really a difficult task for a large society to adopt this. Could you tell me if you have faced any meter maintenance issues due to the use of hard water?