A city and its waters
[Applause]
so
we’re in a beautiful city which is the
fastest growing
urban area in the world economically
speaking
there was a recent report in december
which suggested that bangalore
was the economic powerhouse not only of
karnataka state not
not only of india but but the world
itself
and you know that every city runs on one
engine
and one of the most crucial engines is
water and my story with you
today which i want to share is about
water and bangalore and the historical
connections that there are
the stories in the media this was in
2018 it’s pretty frightening and
alarming
since level city is most likely to run
out of drinking water
sao paulo was one and bangalore was
number two
beneath the io which is a government
think tank
also put bangalore as a city to reach
zero groundwater levels
affecting and overall affecting access
to about 100 million people
this is an international organization
this is a national organization putting
in a pretty dismal picture for
for our city so one wants to ask why is
this happening and it’s very interesting
because i’ve been working in landlords
what sector for the last 30 years
fascinating here’s our city being there
this is the kaveri basin there’s two
dams the theater is
damn near mysore and the cabinet
reservoir
these are the two reservoirs which hold
water release it into the river
from here and here comes to a place
called the record in
near kanapura from there it’s popped up
to the city of bangalore
up 300 meters and a distance of nearly
100 kilometers
making it one of asia’s most costliest
water
most energy embedded water it takes two
units of energy to get a thousand liters
of water to our city
in the water with the most carbon
emissions but this is a remarkable
engineering feed to get water from
100 kilometers and 300 meters below the
city it’s a remarkable engineering point
so this is the dependence of the city on
one single source
the cave for its water but is that true
and why is it that it is
so here’s fascinating things for me
those of you have been to the lag bar
would have seen the big the rock on
which the temple got a tower is this
history is about 3500 million years
the rock itself is 3500 million years
peninsula
means that rock and the volcanic
eruption and the stabilization
has caused bangalore to be at 920 meters
above sea level which gives it this
wonderful climate
the rock also tells us what’s happening
below the ground
weathering zone has happened on top soil
has been created something called where
the rock has been created
this acts like a sponge that holds water
and deep willow is hard rock
that we drill for our boardwells
sometimes find water and sometimes don’t
and we’ve gone to a depth of thousand
eight hundred feet our old people
have carved inscription stones and hero
stones
wear them loose as they’re called and
inscription stones they tell us stories
about what’s happening in the city
for more than thousand two hundred years
and it’s all been carved from this rock
peninsula means and then another
interesting phenomenon happens
and this has got everything to do with
water of bangalore
india about 88 million years ago or
about 90 million years ago maybe 100
million years ago
decided to separate from madagascar the
small island
on the coast off the coast of africa and
decided to drift up to join the asian
subcontinent the continental drift we’re
moving at about two and a half
centimeters a year
india is pushing itself into asia and
creating the himalayas as you know
but there’s an interesting story here
when india moved away from madagascar
it left a piece of what’s called the
western guards
in madagascar and that piece of the
western guards
is called the palgard gap somebody is
travelling from koibatu to kerala
your bus and your train goes through
something called the palgat gap on its
way to polygamy
this gap in the western guards is about
30 kilometers wide
the gap means that the western guards
are sunk and it’s about 300 meters at
that point of time
what’s that got to do with bangalore in
the
months of april and may when the whole
of india is sweltering under summer
the air gets hot over bangalore and
rises up and through the bangladesh gap
the russia sin humid winds
from the arabian sea drifts up in the
afternoon and comes to bangalore
and we get the famous rains called the
office reigns of bangalore
in april and may at 5 or 5 30 in the
evening when you can’t leave your
college and go home or you can’t take
your office and go home
and this means that bangalore third
rainiest month is may
which is the hottest time for the rest
of india and
april will also get about 46 millimeters
of rainfall very important for the city
this rain this rain was understood by
our old people as i showed you in the
description stores
and they built the keras and the bodies
the carriers kunta’s and
cut days the lakes tanks that we know of
to hold and harvest the rain water
infiltrate into the ground become
filtered water and come from these
beautiful wells
to be used for drinking and domestic
purpose this is the story of water
linked to continental drip and lead to a
plateau which was from three and a half
thousand millions of years back
but who are the people who built these
links and tanks
there’s a community called the word the
manwater of the old community
these people have been digging wells and
tanks across india
for more than a thousand years they’re
an international community they migrate
from place to place
all the way from rajasthan and kashmir
in the north to tamil nadu
this community has various names the
state of odisha itself may have come
from this company community
or or what is to pray they broke the
earth
and made these stands and lakes and
they’re still around this community is
still around
if you find a name called the parliament
it’s these people who occupy those
spaces
but they’re a phenomenal community ram
krishna
shankar these are names which have
forgotten about 750 to 1000 families in
and around bangalore still dig wells
but because of the era of borders they
don’t have a job
and this city is riddled with open
wealth i’m not talking about robots
open dad wells you know pottery town
cotton paint but
these names are very familiar to
vandalians all these
places have open worlds with water even
now
like this this water was what served the
city for more than a thousand years with
the coming of the cavalry water supply
and this is the forgotten water that we
need to tap back
if we want to avoid the scare scenarios
bbc puts up how is that to be done
it’s a simple thing grab the rainfall
that falls on the rooftop
push it down this blue drum is a filter
it’s a filter of sand and gravel
and allow it to go into the well this is
an open well there
allow it to percolate into the ground mr
paul subramanian has done that
his wealth gives him all the water he
requires for the whole year that’s
another example out there
these wells are two feet and three feet
in diameter about 20 feet deep
you’re putting rooftop rainwater from
the pipes into them making sure that
you’re harvesting main water and
recharging the aquifer and if you’re in
certain zones of the city
the water then becomes available to you
if we do a million wells for bangalore
we will never have a water shortage
that’s our plan
so where is all this happening if you go
to covent park and enjoy the ambience
and the environment of the place
do spend time to figure out that there
are seven beautiful old open beds which
you have forgotten about
which the waters gave knife to this is
the water level in the works like 10
feet even now
and these wells seven of them including
the famous current of the barbie where
the karuga festival of tango also takes
place
provides about one lakh liters for the
park’s requirement of water
and then garden park has put in 64
rechargeables
to make sure that all the water that
falls in the landscape is pushed into
that river
and these wells are full that’s stupid
because for you
another example close by the wheel and
axle plant
of the railways they had forgotten that
there were four
large beautiful old open wells around
the wetland they were dumping
garbage and slag around that place once
they realized that this pressure was
there with them
they just have to clear away that
garbage and slab restore the wetland
make sure that the water comes to the
wetland there and the welds now give
them three lakh liters of water
they don’t have to depend on the breeder
bssp of the cavity for a drop of water
all their water requirements come from
wells and drain water out of the state
there’s a famous institution the indian
institute of management in bangalore
they have put about 60 recharge wells
picking water from storm water drains
leading them to these wells which are
about 20 to 30 feet deep
making sure the water infiltrates into
the ground and therefore wells now give
them
much better water than what they used to
do before large canvases
can do rechargeable scale how are these
wells made how are these rechargers made
here’s some one word digging down into
the soil using implements which
are hand operated they dig about three
or four feet
in diameter and go 20 30 40 feet but
typically 20 to 25 feet
then they use precast concrete rings
which are made on the side on the side
of roads
these rings are lowered into the fit one
at a time
and one one ring is lower you pack it
with gravel on the side
and then you put in the next ring and
finally you put a grill
or a concrete slab cover to make sure
it’s safe and secure
then you need storm water into this well
and when you need the storm water or
this roof topping water as you see the
water can come back in many of these
waters
it’s a simple process a team of
well-developed four or five can dig a
well in a day
they do well in a day so that’s the kind
of output productivity they are
so how then should wells be imagined in
the future how should we imagine
groundwater
this is a classic example of a layout
called rainbow drive
which does not have connections to the
city water utility
which means there are 360 sites here or
plots
each one of them would have dug up ball
well
spending two lakh rupees going 900 feet
360 straws into the same coca-cola
bottle trying to empty it
yes and pretty soon all of it dried so
how do you reverse the process
by banning private borders by putting
three community borders
sharing the water by putting in 360 new
recharge wells everybody takes
responsibility to fill water in
everybody takes corrective
responsibility to share whatever they’re
treating
in an equitable manner and to put a gap
on demand to use
as much water as you actually put it
into the ground up less
so that you’re stable what rainbow drive
has then achieved
is water sustainability at a 36 acre
scale
apartments are also doing it t-zl is an
apartment which is close to work too
they’ve done something remarkable
they’ve not only put 40 recharges to put
all the water into the ground
but they treat their wastewater and this
is the first community
in india which actually blends their
treated wastewater
with good groundwater and as you see
they drink it
so this is the kind of pioneering
approach that bangalore has shown
and communities have shown which we need
to scale up if you have to address the
water problem that
that they have and as local communities
are working on reviving states like this
one called kaikoura
downstream of it large wells are coming
back to life and these birds now provide
water to apartments
where ironically in the same apartment
the boardwall is dry
but open well is providing water because
of the geology of bangalore in many
places
the open world is not connected to the
board well the surface water
the surface activates easier to recharge
the deep aquifer is more difficult
as we work towards reviving our blades
or shallow open wells should come back
more and more to life
and everywhere the bond vendors
participate
whether shankar ram krishna the teams
that there are
they participate in cleaning these old
open worlds resetting them bringing them
back to life digging new ones
recharging them and the pressure which
they’re finding in these wells is not
necessarily
old coins but actually the water that is
there in the world
and the water is more precious than any
gold or diamond or anything that you can
think of
this is what the well diggers are able
to achieve through their million through
the million west program
all they ask for is more work provide us
work so that we earn the livelihood to
bring up our family to educate our
children
to be able to make sure that the
children have a brighter future and that
the city has water security
we need a compact a partnership between
these traditional well-takers
and the citizens of this great city of
ours
and put in place a million dollars to
recharge rainwater
so that our younger generation
and us become groundwater literate water
literate
and permanently avoid any chance of
water scarcity
so this is the compact this is the
vision not i have
but what the manwa does have for the
city of bangalore
linking geology time
livelihoods and history with the present
and the future
to make things sustainable let’s jump
this journey thank you
you