In Trichy on Thursday, some 40 farmers got into a dirty part of the Cauvery river stretch to protest against the decision of the Karnataka government to defer the release of water to Tamil Nadu.
“It is not as if the Cauvery water that Karnataka releases to Tamil Nadu is pure. Look at the water, it is polluted with the sewage of Bengaluru,” says P Ayyakannu, president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the South Indian Rivers Interlinking Farmers Association.
Ayyakannu’s claim is not off the mark. Karnataka minor irrigation minister Shivaraj Tangadagi conceded in the Legislative Council last year that 1400 million litres of Bengaluru’s sewage is let into Tamil Nadu everyday. Of this about 40 per cent flows into the Cauvery and its tributary, the Arkavathi river, while the remaining 60 per cent enters the lower riparian through the Pinakini and Ponniyar rivers.
Needless to say, Tamil Nadu is not happy about using this water both for drinking and irrigation needs. The Cauvery water buttresses Chennai’s drinking water supply through the Veeranam tank in Cuddalore district. The Tamil Nadu government went to the Supreme court last year, shocked by the test reports of water samples taken just before the waters enter Tamil Nadu. To ensure neutrality, the samples were tested at the lab of the Central Pollution Control Board.
The test reports revealed that as against the ideal biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of 3 mg/litre, the BOD in the water released varied between 19.7 and 32 mg/litre. Similarly fecal coliform was much higher than desired tolerance limits approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
The protest by Trichy’s farmers has only highlighted how much the Cauvery dispute is about Bengaluru, with the promise to provide water for irrigation to farmers mere lip sympathy. Water was in any case not being provided to the farmers of the Cauvery delta because priority obviously was to provide drinking water to Bengaluru city and also Mysuru and Mandya.
To see the Cauvery dispute as a pan-Karnataka issue itself is erroneous. It gets undue amount of national attention because it flows through the more affluent and politically powerful part of Karnataka and the Bengaluru connection. The dispute finds no resonance in coastal or north Karnataka.
About 1350 million litres of Cauvery water is consumed everyday by Bengaluru. By this calculation, the Water Supply Board estimates that water in the Krishna Raja Sagara dam would last only for 80-odd days. Which means Bengaluru is really dependent on getting its reservoirs filled up courtesy the north-east monsoon by December, failing which the city would find it difficult to manage through the summer of 2017.
The problem is that Bengaluru not just pollutes the Cauvery water it receives and lets it out as sewage into the same rivers, it also wastes 50 per cent of the water allocated to it. According to India Spend, roughly 600 of the 1350 million litres are wasted due to leakages in the water supply system and unauthorised water connections. The norm is that wastage should not exceed 15 per cent. The same Bengaluru witnessed violence and arson to protest the release of water to Tamil Nadu.
Bengaluru has not displayed any responsibility in water conservation either. Only 1 lakh of the 20 lakh properties in the city have rainwater harvesting structures. Water conservation experts say at least 20 per cent of water supply to an urban cluster should ideally come through saving by rainwater harvesting structures.
The annual rainfall that the garden city gets is about 900 mm. But the over 2 lakh borewells in Bengaluru withdraw three and a half times more than the recharge. Which is why many bores, even when they have gone as deep as 1000 feet, have not found water. A tanker mafia flourishes in the city now, almost taking over Bengaluru in the summers.
It is also ironic that Bengaluru claims first right over Cauvery water after having killed 800 of its 1000-odd water bodies. The images of frothing Bellandur and Yemlur lake have travelled far and wide, with nothing done to prevent the lakes from getting polluted or encroached.
A study in 2013 done by the Centre for Policies and Practices in Bengaluru on the water situation had said that no new construction, especially coming up on the outskirts of the city should be promised a Cauvery water connection. With the city’s present population over one crore, V Balasubramanian, former Additional Chief Secretary of Karnataka and Chairman of the Centre, predicted that half of Bengaluru will have to be evacuated by 2023 due to water scarcity and contamination of water. Balasubramanian now thinks doomsday for Bengaluru is much nearer, given the water crisis.
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