Whitefield drains expose severity of Bengaluru's stormwater crisis

Huge, dangerous openings on the roads with garbage and dirty water visible inside. Some of them marked with green mesh to warn people about the open drain beneath, while others filled with concrete to prevent disasters. Welcome to Ozone Entrance Road in Whitefield—all because the entire road is built on a stormwater drain, causing clogs, floods and panic among residents in the area, especially during rains.

The stench is unbearable, and the health consequences are real for residents. Residents say a Swiggy delivery person recently fell into one of the openings with his vehicle and was rescued by the residents.

The continuation of this drain, which was about 80 feet wide a few years ago, has now shrunk to less than 10 feet in parts. A water tanker business operates on the same road, drawing water from borewells on the vacant land nearby.

The area features all the problems that typically plague stormwater drains in Bengaluru: garbage and construction debris dumping, road built on the drain, encroachment, poor planning, no desilting, sewage inlets by residents—you name it, this area has it.

Officials in charge of the area say their task is to clear the stormwater drain, and sewage and garbage are not their concern. However, residents pay out of pocket and hire people to clear the weeds and ensure water flows smoothly. “It’s like we pay taxes and then fund this too,” says Anupama, a resident. Many residents also complain about dengue and mosquito issues.

Elsewhere in North Bengaluru, an upcoming residential apartment complex has a sewage treatment plant but lacks dual plumbing to use treated water for flushing. 

When asked why, the builder throws a practical problem: “Buyers do not prefer it, because the use of chemicals and any lapse in treatment affects the quality of water, which ends up staining toilets.” To save his business, he lets the treated water into a minor stormwater drain on the road. As a result, sewage water will flow in the stormwater drain even in summer.

Most of the newer areas added to Bengaluru face issues with stormwater management. Only the core city area and well-planned layouts are free of stormwater drain woes, while the city floods in low-lying areas during heavy rain.

When complaints go unheard

Anupama says the residents in the area have been complaining constantly since 2017. "Officials come, clear the area and go, and the area goes back to square one in a few weeks," she says, adding that there is no real commitment from anyone to solve the issue.

There were examples of sewage entering the stormwater drain near Vinayakanagar Layout, an area between Kanakpura Road and Bannerghatta Road. “BWSSB has been promising a solution for the last three years. We took it to the National Human Rights Commission and other fora,” explains R Rajagopalan, founder of Bengaluru Coalition.

A large portion of the city's sewage network is based on convenience—running through stormwater drains. The issue is that BWSSB chambers and pipes are damaged, and sewage flows directly into the stormwater drain and then to lakes. “We will escalate this case to the NGT soon,” he says. 

He explains that construction encroachment, RCC covers and roads built on drains are the major issues. Flooding occurs because of poor design, capacity issues, and the fact that drains are a concretised, limited-scope pathway for water to flow,” he explains. 

“There are no silt traps in the drains, though they kept talking about it for years. An estimated cost of a silt trap was Rs 1 crore, which is ridiculously high, but it is not a feasible solution,” he says. Desilting is an issue that has no accountability; the bills are submitted even when the work is not done,” he adds.

“No one verifies the numbers the corporation officials throw concerning encroachments, in response to court orders,” he adds.

He adds that he and a few affected residents have been pursuing many cases related to flooding and encroachment, including those in the Lokayukta and high court. “We formed a working group and shared photos with officials to focus on particular areas. We recommended drone monitoring and weekly reports to be published, but the result was not encouraging,” he adds.

He calls the K-100 project, which remodelled and beautified selected drains, a sheer waste of public money (Rs 200 crore). “Everyone thinks of the Shantinagar Bus Depot area as a shining sample of K-100. Go further, a little downstream, or drive to CV Raman Nagar or Domlur flyover to see the reality of K-100,” he says. “It will never get fixed unless the problem is fixed at the root; adding local STPs is not the solution,” he adds.

“Our latest concern is the planned 300 kilometres of roads next to stormwater drains. Unless it is designed right and allows water to percolate, it will not be ideal. The idea here is to prevent private encroachment on roads. However, the NGT does not recommend building roads in the buffer zone; it asks to keep it open,” he points out.

“The design of the roadside drains is totally wrong. They allow for garbage to fall inside when the pourakarmikas sweep,” says Ashwin Mahesh, an urbanist based in Bengaluru. Then comes the task of desilting and removing garbage. Contractors chosen for such tasks are substandard and cheaper, and the focus is not on the quality or longevity of the work.

He asks why water should be carried to lower areas at all, and suggests digging soakpits in stormwater drains in higher areas.  He feels regular maintenance of the drains is crucial. “The city has been built badly by bad engineering; we are paying for it now,” he quips, adding that there is no shortcut to building infrastructure correctly to address all problems at once.

Many miles to go to achieve resilience

A CAG report tabled in 2021, along with an elaborate analysis and indictment of all concerned departments for their failure to manage urban flooding, also offered recommendations to BBMP and BWSSB. One of them asked the BBMP and BWSSB to jointly prepare a plan of action to prevent sewage from flowing into drains, with the implementation to be monitored by the state government.

Ever since, BWSSB and BBMP (now GBA) have been playing catch-up.

“Ensuring that apartments do not leave water into storm water drains is a collective responsibility of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), municipal corporations and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). However, the legal mandate of ensuring no treated water goes to stormwater drains is with the KSPCB, so other departments cannot interfere,” says Ram Prasath Manohar, BWSSB Chairman.

According to him, the capacity to handle sewage is the biggest issue. “We are expanding the capacity as of now, with the help of a World Bank loan,” he adds. The World Bank will provide a loan of Rs 1070 crore to expand the wastewater treatment plant and sewage pumping system in Bengaluru..

“Natural slope is another challenge to carry sewage water,” he adds, explaining that while Vrushabhavathi and Arkavathi valleys have good slope, Koramangala-Challaghtaa Valley has its challenges with respect to slope, causing problems in sewage flow. The issue with the slope also affects stormwater flow.

The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) will get a loan of Rs 2,000 crore from the World Bank for the Bengaluru Water Resilience Project. Out of the total 860 kilo metres of stormwater drains in the city, 173.89 kilo metres of temporary drains will be upgraded by constructing retaining walls and structures, while 80 kilo metres of existing drains will get concrete walls under the project.

The GBA will also get Rs 238.72 crore from the National Disaster Mitigation Fund under the Urban Flood Risk Management Programme (UFRMP), as recommended by the 15th Finance Commission. This will focus on removing choke points in low-lying areas, lakes, and flood points, and on building bridges where required.

Zonal flood plans soon

Gayathri Muralidharan, co-managing partner of Urban Water Programme, WellLabs, says that the organisation is partnering with the GBA and KSNDMC on the issue. “The project will explore blue, green and grey solutions to manage stormwater. Nature-based solutions such as rain gardens and recharge pits will be integrated into it. There will be a plan for buffer management as well,” she says. There is also a flood master plan that will use years of data to create a template to help the city prevent future floods, she adds.

These plans will be replicated at the local level. “Zonal plans will be completed before the next monsoon. There will be a stormwater management template done by the GBA shared to all zones, which the zones will localise according to the needs and implement before the next monsoon,” says Rajendra K V, Commissioner of Bengaluru West Corporation. He says regular tasks such as garbage collection, chainlink fencing, desilting, coordinating with BWSSB, and ensuring water flows smoothly are the corporation's responsibility. 

When asked why the city still floods and encroachments persist, GBA officials say the kind of rain and cloudbursts the city has been seeing these days are to blame. They admit inefficiency and inability to handle pressure in the clearance of drain encrachment.

“In an ideal condition, the city’s drains cannot have dry weather flow, but as of now, it exists due to lacunae in the system. The BWSSB is struggling to improve its capacity. Once the capacity is expanded, we can make sure stormwater drains will remain empty in summer and non-rain seasons,” an official said, preferring anonymity.

After the municipalities were separated, not all the files have been transferred to the local corporations yet, though they now have to manage them individually, says the official.