Lake in Bangalore, India. Wikimedia Commons
In India’s City of a Thousand Lakes, the water mafia reigns supreme.
Bangalore is home to India’s largest collections of natural lakes and man-made reservoirs. Together, they form a water network that spans the city. Despite this, the city has been plagued by water shortages. These shortages are caused by two factors: the lessening availability of safe groundwater and the growing influence of Bangalore’s water mafia. Without reigning in the water mafia, Bangalore cannot address the problem of domestic water shortages.
The water mafia controls a private water supply chain that provides water to areas of Bangalore neglected by the local government. They do this by using water tankers. The city’s informal housing settlements are their biggest consumers of this indispensable product.
Type of water tank used by the water mafia for water transportation. Wikimedia Commons
A “merry coalition of thugs, local politicians and even some water department employees” is how Prof. Malini Ranganathan of American University describes the water mafia. These aren’t just unscrupulous operators trucking in water to slums, they allegedly are supported by politicians allegedly include members of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), who are in charge of the upkeep of residential infrastructure and other essential systems.
An association of contractors recently accused the BBMP of rampant corruption. But the roots of corruption are deep, and its influence is great.
Corruption from land to lake
Bangalore’s most vulnerable neighborhoods are not served by the city’s potable water system. This isn’t caused by an oversight nor is it an unfortunate consequence of poor urban planning. This is the work of the water mafia. They have colluded with corrupt real estate industry workers to exclude informal settlements from the official water supply system. Research found that mafias went as far as to turn off the valves to pipes supplying some of these neighborhoods – forcing the area’s residents to turn to other means.
The water mafia profit from this corruption. It allows them to charge absurd prices for a basic necessity. The price of water has almost doubled in the past year– jumping from Rs. 800 (US $9.80) to Rs. 1400 (US $17.15) for 6,000 litres of water. This isn’t petty change for Indians, particularly those living in informal settlements, whose average income is Rs. 4000 (US $49.00) a month. And 6,000 litres doesn’t even support an average Indian couple for a month.
The big takeaway? The cost of the water mafia’s water is exploitative at best, extortion at worst.
Groundwater muddies the matter
Although water shortages are exacerbated by the water mafia, they stem from the large issue of a lack of fresh groundwater and access to this groundwater.
An estimated 40% of Bangaloreans are dependent on groundwater for drinking water. However, groundwater tables in Bangalore have failed to recharge despite heavy rains due to the amount of concrete on the city’s foundation.
Land with plentiful groundwater has become a valuable resource. This hasn’t escaped the attention of some landowners, who have sold this land to the water mafia for hefty sums of money. Through this system, the water mafia has gained access to more resources as the government continues to fail to provide for the city’s lower-income communities.
A couple years ago, both the BBC and NITI Aayog published separate reports stating that the city would run out of groundwater by 2020. Two years later, this hasn’t occurred. This is solely due to the torrential rains of recent monsoon seasons.
Bangalore is at the mercy of monsoons. Experts report that if the city misses a single monsoon season, Bangalore will run out of groundwater in six months. The city is surviving on borrowed time. Better groundwater management cannot occur without an overhaul of the business and workings of the water mafia. Without a severe crackdown on the water mafia, Bangalore is in hot water.