Bengaluru Water Crisis: City Falling Short by 500 Million Litres of Water Daily, 51% of Water Tankers not Registered: CM Siddaramaiah

The extreme water crisis in the city exposed the existence of tanker mafias, i.e., the presence of illegal unregistered water tankers in Silicon City. The mounting prices of the water tankers forced the state government of K’taka to act as per the Disaster Management Act. The water mafia is misusing the shortage of water in Bengaluru with illegal borewell extraction. To reduce the technical failure and maintain around 11000 public borewells the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) will use robotic technology. Ramprasath Manohar BWSSB chairman said, “If the borewells have turned dry and we are not able to rejuvenate them, they can be converted to Rain Water Harvesting structures.”

CM Siddaramaiah said that Bengaluru needs 2600 million litres of water daily (MLD) and is short by 500 MLD. Of this, 1450 MLD is being provided by the Cauvery River and 650 MLD is being provided by borewells in the city. CM said that 6900 borewells in the city out of 14000 have dried up and 55 out of 110 villages added to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palika (BBMP) are facing a water crisis. CM said, “I have instructed officials to increase the groundwater level by filling important lakes in Bengaluru with treated water.”There is no data available about the presence of these water tanker mafias or unregistered water tankers. They are operating without government registration and breaking legal boundaries. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palika (BBMP) data revealed that more than 1700 tankers were registered until March 15th, 2024, whereas the official number of water tankers registered with the transport department is 1499. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday revealed that merely 49% of the tankers have registered. 

Despite new directives including permission for new borewell digging and banning drinking water for non-drinking purposes such as car washing, the illegal water tanker operators are making money through this as well. Tankers were seen filling up from boring pumps or from borewells in villages or from the outskirts of Bengaluru to supply water not for farming or agriculture purposes but to supply water to granite, marble cutting industry, or other factories at high prices. Tankers get water from illegal borewells dug near lakes. As these tankers source water from illegal borewells and hence, sometimes the quality of groundwater in these borewells remains hazardous for people owing to sewage leakage or any other reason.Officials admit that unauthorized tankers are operating in the city including agriculture and commercial tractors and trailers used due to the present water crisis demand. 

These vehicles can’t be tracked. Such unauthorized vehicles are mostly not suitable according to the criteria mentioned by BBMP and Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). They may not have the ethoxylated polyethyiemine (EPI) coating that water tankers are supposed to have to prevent rusting. As these are operating illegally, it is not known whether these tankers have done the coating or not. And, this is a dangerous factor risking the health of individuals. These illegal tankers which operate for commercial purposes, sometimes put white number plates meant for private usage. Such vehicles don’t fall under any department other than transport. Vikas Kishor Suralkar, BBMP Special Commissioner of Health said that BBMP doesn’t issue trade licenses for water tankers. Hence, without a trade license, they could not even be called illegal unless the transport department identified them as illegal. BWSSB asked BBMP to regulate water tankers but this never happened. But now with this water crisis, BBMP's self-registration action might regulate these illegal water tankers. According to sources, until the water crisis is over these unauthorized tankers will not be touched because such action will eventually increase the tanker prices.