30% of Cauvery water goes down the drain in Bengaluru

BWSSB loses Rs 90 cr a month to leaking pipes, illegal connections

Even as a water crisis looms large over the City, around 300 million litres goes down the drain every day during transmission and distribution. This has been a long-standing problem and water lost is beyond measurement.

The Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), which supplies around 1,350 MLD of Cauvery water to the City from a distance of 100 km, doesn’t have the funds to plug this loss, which is as high as 30%.

“This quantity of water loss is huge. The acceptable norm set by Central Public Health Engineering and Environmental Organisation (CPHEEO) is 12%. Half of the Cauvery water that is pumped to the City remains unaccounted for or goes waste. This needs to be tackled on a war-footing. BWSSB is losing revenues of about Rs 90 crore a month due to technical losses (30%) and commercial losses (150%),” according to water expert and former BWSSB engineer M N Thippeswamy.

“While about 5% of water is lost in transmission, 40% is lost during distribution. The reasons are classified into two: Physical losses (leakage in pipelines, drying up of reservoirs) and commercial losses (unauthorised connections, meter tampering and meter reader lapses),” he said.

As a result, the City’s population of almost one crore is deprived of sufficient water. Although adequate water is available in four major reservoirs, it’s not reaching consumers. Considering CPHEEO guidelines, each person needs 135 litres of water a day. However, the actual quantity each person gets is roughly 80 litres a day. The situation is worse in the 110 villages that were added to the City, as they have no Cauvery water supply.

This has resulted in a substantial increase in water tariff. The BWSSB, which spends Rs 35 on a litre of Cauvery water, charges Rs 50 for a litre on an average for domestic connections and a little higher for non-domestic connections. Of the total revenue of Rs 90 crore it generates a month, the board spends Rs 40 crore a month on electricity alone.

Thippeswamy feels that reducing unaccounted for water (UFW) is essential in order to save precious fresh water. “The reduction in water loss will result in the increase of revenue. This would improve the board’s efficiency and address issues like replacement of pipes and other assets,” he said.

SS Ranganathan, senior water management consultant said that depleting ground water level signals a water crisis in the future. “Reducing water use, reusing and recycling will help the city, with the increase in population in the coming years,” he cautioned.

UFW projects
Although the BWSSB has taken up three projects to reduce physical losses, there seems no willingness to act against commercial losses. BWSSB chief engineer (Maintenance) Kemparamaiah said the Board spends Rs 654.24 crore to bring down UFW to acceptable 16% in three divisions. The work on the remaining three divisions will be taken up soon with JICA grants. This requires additional Rs 700 crore,” he said.