Dry and distressed: Karnataka’s wait for water

As the state faces an intensifying water crisis, how will Karnataka carve a path towards source sustainability and groundwater replenishment?

Bengaluru: Despite being the main catchment area of River Cauvery, Kodagu is not unfamiliar with water shortage during summer months. This year, the district administration's move to restrict irrigation to ensure the availability of drinking water has triggered a water war. "Farmers in Kodagu use stream water for irrigation only for two months in a year, how can the district administration ban it?” asked farmer leader Manu Somaiah on Friday, during a protest in front of the deputy commissioner's office.

“Such a step will kill our crops while resorts are allowed to waste water throughout the year," says Somaiah. 

The water crisis hit headlines over the last two weeks after Bengaluru finally woke up to dry borewells and a shortage of tankers, nearly six months after Karnataka declared 223 taluks as drought-hit. Meanwhile, farmers, frustrated with the water crisis, raised an outcry when the price of chillies they had struggled to grow in the burning heat, crashed overnight last week.

While the state stands in wait of monsoon, which is more than two months away, water levels at Karnataka’s 23 reservoirs are at 131 tmcft on March 15. This is 56 tmcft less than the previous year. A crisis seems to be looming. Live storage at the Krishnaraja Sagar has dipped to 6.34 tmcft, similar to water levels during the drought of 2016-17, raising questions about what has been done in the past eight years to avoid a repeat crisis. 

Government initiatives

Several government schemes have been implemented to ensure tap water supply to rural areas in the event of such crises. In fact, a senior official in the rural water supply department says the problem has been mitigated due to these central and state schemes. "The data on the water supply schemes will show that we have made significant steps towards providing safe drinking water," he says.

As per the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, 75% of 1.01 crore households in Karnataka have been provided with tap connections. The assets have been geotagged to monitor the progress of the scheme. However, there is no direct answer as to how many of them actually carry water.

Data shows that Karnataka has 40,300 piped water supply projects in 31 districts. Though work orders have been issued for 38,231 works, only 3,315 (8.67%) have been "physically completed" while thousands of projects are at various stages of completion. 

The delay has led to a struggle for survival, especially for those on the margins of rural communities. For instance, residents in the Asthana tribal haadi (tribal hamlet) in Virajpet taluk of Kodagu district are facing a drinking water crisis. The residents of the haadi are forced to collect water from sources that are far away. 

A permanent solution is still a distant dream for residents. “Some have to walk more than half a kilometre to fetch a pot of water from a public well," a resident told DH.

The resident of the haadi adds, “After several appeals, now the gram panchayat has taken up the work on laying a pipeline to the hamlet to supply water and the work is in progress.”

Many of the projects in progress include multi-village supply (MVS) schemes, with lakhs of households waiting for the promised water. “The water will not come,” an adviser to the government told DH, “At least not for the next two months.” 

“The schemes depend on either borewells or rivers, both of which have gone dry. There is no sustainable source to ensure the taps will bring water to avoid a crisis situation,” he added.  

Dry borewells 

In the Kittur-Karnataka region, villages that do not have any water source are in dire straits. Officials who relied on borewells to pump water have been disappointed by the harsh drought. Depletion of the groundwater table has made the supply of water impossible.

This is visible in the seven districts of Kalyana Karnataka where the temperature is hovering around 40 degrees Celsius and where rivers have run dry. 

Out of 1,268 borewells present in Kalaburagi, 357 borewells have become defunct. The district administration has attributed the depletion of groundwater levels to the drought. 

District administrations in the region have identified hundreds of villages that may face water crises in April and May. Officials have identified private borewells to supply water to the villages. 

As groundwater levels deplete, high fluoride content in water poses a threat to human health.  Fluoride (31 districts) and arsenic (3 districts) contamination have made RO plants necessary in Karnataka. Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants installed by the government remain defunct in many villages, while some do not have RO plants at all. 

Crisis imminent 

The administration in Belagavi has claimed that 39 villages are staring at a water crisis and alternate measures like supplying water through tankers have been taken up. Of the total 140 works awarded in 2023, 58 works have been completed under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).

In Haveri, over 330 works were undertaken in 2022 in phase one of the JJM project and nearly 90% of the project is in the completion stage. As many as 136 works were initiated in phase two last year, of which only 36 are progressing. “Pipelines were laid a year ago but not even a single drop of water has trickled down from the tap,” says Mahanteshappa, a resident of Haveri taluk.

In Dharwad, too, 153 villages are already facing a water crisis and the administration is busy supplying water through tankers. The situation is worse at tail-end villages which are grappling to quench their thirst. Around 175 villages in Davangere district are getting water through borewells. 

Even areas in Shivamogga district, known for receiving copious amounts of rainfall, are facing a water crisis. Many lakes and rivers in Hosanagar, Thirthahalli and Sagar taluks have almost dried up. Farmers have continued to dig borewells with the hope of getting water to irrigate their crops.

Drinking water supply priority 

The reason why villages across Karnataka have developed a high dependence on borewells is that, during droughts, water supply from other main sources is directed to meet drinking water needs on priority. A senior official at the Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Department says the major sources for the MVS projects are reservoirs and dams. “The department is dependent on reservoirs of rivers Krishna, Tungabhadra and Cauvery for MVS. As the supply of drinking water is the top priority, reservoirs maintain the required quantity for the supply of drinking water,” he says.

He acknowledges that the vagaries of monsoon have an impact on the supply of drinking water.

“Depending on local water resources such as lakes, tanks and others alone is not a long-term solution. The department is looking at rainwater for the rejuvenation of borewells and groundwater tables. In places such as Kolar and Chikkaballapur, treated water supply has worked wonders and the government is looking at extending this to other districts,”
he adds. 

Dependency on monsoon to ensure water supply has proved to be a flawed approach. The Karnataka Water Policy 2022 warns that most northern districts are projected to have an increase in drought incidence by 10% to 80%, with some districts projected to have almost a doubling of drought frequency. 

The future

Even in the low-emission scenario, Karnataka’s State Action Plan for Climate Change has grim warnings for the state. The study forecasts that rains during the kharif season (June to October) will continue to play truant. Projections for 2030 show a one to 14%  increase in deviation from the mean average rainfall in 13 districts which already receive less than 1,000 mm. 

At the same time, climate change is expected to negatively impact vegetation with seven districts, from Kodagu and Hassan to Raichur and Vijayapura, not being able to support the “existing vegetation or forest type and biodiversity”. The disappearance of greenery may, in turn, lead to more climate extremes.

Dipankar Saha, former member of the Central Groundwater Authority and currently member, Water for People India Trust, says it is high time we ensure source sustainability. “Every scheme taken up by the government should be vetted based on sustainability. Policymakers cannot turn away from the crisis unfolding before them. We need to prepare people for the future with policy interventions regarding the use of water, especially the use of groundwater for irrigation,” he says.

Saha adds that unlike the states in the Gangetic plain, a majority of peninsular India, including Maharashtra and Karnataka, have hard rock aquifers with low storage capacity. “Recharging them requires a continuous source like a tank or a lake. Apart from the runoff during rains, we have to treat every drop of domestic sewage and fill the water bodies to create a sustainable source for recharging groundwater in the long run. Governments and local administrations need to desilt existing water bodies and set up new ones if needed,” he explains. 

As per a proposal made by Karnataka to the Asian Development Bank, 50% of its population is expected to shift to urban areas by 2030. Karnataka’s economic survey 2023-24 notes that even at present, 1,398.44 mld of the total 3,356 mld sewage generated in the state remains untreated, “implying that the sewage finds its way to rivers and lakes untreated, resulting in severe environmental deterioration. There is a need to increase the treatment capacity of the state to avoid adverse impact on health and environment.”

Unfortunately, successive governments have pushed for big-ticket projects, instead. The Yettinahole project has already become a white elephant with a cost escalation of 180%. Last week, the government pushed for Mekedatu as a magic bullet for the Bengaluru problem. The hurried inauguration of the Varahi irrigation project in Udupi has also invited widespread criticism as no water flowed to the villages. 

Friends of Lakes activist V Ramprasad says desilting of lakes and development of lakes based on ecological principles is the need of the hour. “Most lakes in Bengaluru need to be desilted. The same goes for many water bodies in the state. We need an action plan for a scientific rejuvenation to keep our aquifers alive,” he says. 

Minor Irrigation and Groundwater Development Department Secretary G E Yathish Chandran told DH that the idea of a network of water bodies recharging the groundwater was feasible as long as custodians of the lakes join hands. “The 36,000 lakes and tanks in Karnataka can act as a source for recharging groundwater. From our department to the urban local bodies and panchayats, different administrations are managing different lakes. Rejuvenation and maintenance of the lakes are essential to make them reliable water sources,” he adds.

(With inputs from Gayathri G R in Mysuru, Naina J A in Mangaluru, Nrupathunga S K in Davangere, Pavan Kumar H in Hubballi, Shilpa P in Mysuru, Shrinidhi R in Dharwad, Raju Gavali in Belagavi and Vittal Shastri in Kalaburagi)