MANY MORE ‘BENGALURUS’ AWAITING

Once known for their pleasant climates and livability, cities Like bengaluru now face severe challenges due to rapid urbanisation and environmental neglect. This article sheds light on the urgent need for sustainable urban planning and water conservation efforts.

If you think Bengaluru is alone in fighting its worst-ever water crisis, then you are wrong. The IT capital’s dipping water table has not happened overnight, though.

Unchecked urban expansion

There are many Indian cities that were until two or three decades ago known for their salubrious weather and as the ultimate destination to settle down after one’s retirement—all have gone from bad to worse. Their so-called ‘reputation’ of being the best liveable city in that region now holds zero credibility. Pune, once a city of pensioners or known to be one for cyclists, is, thanks to IT industry aggression, now an ‘unliveable’ city where cycles have been pushed off the roads by splashy, modern, and expensive cars. Indore in Madhya Pradesh, otherwise a backward state, is another city that has seen its temperatures shoot upwards of 45 degrees in summers. The biggest urban centre of Central India, it has changed rapidly with many more buildings, migrations, and automobiles. All this has created acute water problems, just like in Bengaluru.

Lessons from history

Can a city survive without water and its natural resources—large open areas, lakes, parks, trees, small rivers, and its biodiversity? Bengaluru provides the answer in capital letters. NO!

Near the old Bengaluru airport, a stone inscription from 1307 CE in the village Vibhutipura, describes how one of the tanks was created when people ‘cleared the jungle in the tract of land adjoining Peru- Eumur, levelled the ground, built a village, constructed a tank by removing the sand, and named the village Vacchidevarapiram’.

The unprecedented yet expected water crisis in Bengaluru reminded me of a wonderful book, Shades of Blue, by two lady author-teachers of Azim Premji University from the IT capital. Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli have mentioned the above historical information in Chapter Bengaluru—Landlocked City of Tanks and Lakes.

They say the rulers of the city—from Kempegowda and Shahji Bhonsle to Tipu Sultan and the British—all knew the importance of water, maintaining the lakes (tanks) and ponds, and creating new ones.

Modern mismanagement

After Chennai became waterless a few years ago (and no lessons learned), another big city in south India is undergoing the aftermath of horrible urban planning, unchecked exploitation of water, and scant regard for conserving its beautiful lakes.

Without the help of AI, people more than 3000 years ago chose the sprawling place where Bengaluru city, much later, developed beyond its ‘carrying capacity’. Remember, they had developed water sources, which the later generation of more educated politicians and bureaucrats took pride in paving in the name of development. Now the time has come when the very meaning of development needs to be altered, considering the climatic challenges staring us in the face.

Lakes were built in those days at higher elevations to be filled with rainwater; the excess water would flow into the lower lake, thus creating a natural water network when electricity was not available. This was a common technique all over India in times when engineers with fancy degrees and powerful bureaucrats controlling them had not arrived on the scene to do the stupid experiments they do today with no control over them from anyone. The less said, the better about our politicians!

Urgent reforms needed

Why I am actually not surprised that Bengaluru is facing an acute water crisis today is because in the past 40 years that I have been involved in lake conservation activities, I have witnessed how bureaucrats, municipal chiefs (mayors and commissioners), politicians, and engineers have jointly ruined water bodies across urban India.

I agree that the growing population is indeed a towering challenge. Even in the so-called ‘Amritkal’, the highly questionable ways of ‘managing’ water bodies—lakes, ponds, wells, and rivers—are also responsible for the urban water crisis. The Amrit Sarovar scheme of the GOI has brought about significant change. It needs sustained efforts to make it successful in securing the future of children. Ground water has dipped at an alarming rate in Bengaluru and other cities, adding to our woes. The importance of rainwater percolation to help recharge water aquifers is yet to dawn upon ‘New India. Old India, or Bharat, knew about it well. The two largest Bengaluru lakes—Bellandur and Varthur—have almost been killed because of heavy construction all around them. Who is responsible? Who gave permission to allow construction in the catchment areas or lake beds?

If villages were made smart, unnatural migration could have been arrested to some extent. Policymakers have created a mirage in the name of cities. Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Indore, Lucknow, or New Delhi are places everyone wants to come and live. It is because construction (metros, flyovers, and roads) gets politicians easy money. Saving a lake or a river does not! That is the tragedy.

A stone inscription from 1307 CE describes how people cleared the jungle in the tract of land adjoining Peru-Eumur, levelled the ground, built a village, constructed a tank by removing the sand, and named the village Vacchidevarapiram’.