In the corporate world, they always go for the "low hanging fruit."When they don't have that option, then they go for the higher ones. Likewise, we have an easily available “low fruit” in the form of rainwater, but the state government is aiming for the higher ones, the multi-crore Sharavathi and Yettinahole projects.
For anything to be successful, people’s participation is neccessary. But although politicians try to appear like saviours and argue that these projects are good for Bengaluru, they have no people participation.
But in projects like rainwater harvesting it is the people who lead. They are able to see how much water they can save by taking a simple step. Nowhere do we find such an idea of bringing water over such long distances of 400 kms, which can cause huge ecological destruction too.
Bengaluru at present has only one water source, the river Cauvery. I have been advising the government to always have two other options like rainwater harvesting and treated water handy for supply to the people.
As of now, Bengaluru is spread over 825 sqkm and is supplied with 1250 Million Litres of water (MLD) every day. Even if you take all the stages of the Cauvery water scheme and Mekdattu, into account, its total water supply will not cross 30 MLD. So what next ?
The government needs to seriously stress on rain water harvesting and supplying treated water for all secondary purposes like construction, gardening, cleaning and so on.
To persuade more people take to rain water harvesting, we need to increase the water tariff. There should be no hike for the minimum 8,000 to 10,000 litres of water supplied by the board, but the tariff should be increased multi-fold for any use over that.
This way people will feel the pinch, and seriously consider opting for rainwater harvesting.
Prof A R Shivakumar, popularly known as the Rainman of India
