B.Pac moves SC, seeks enough drinking water for Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mandya

The Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.Pac) on Monday approached the Supreme Court, seeking direction to Karnataka to ensure that the drinking water requirement of Bengaluru and Cauvery basin districts were fully met in the present water year.

It also sought direction to the Cauvery Supervisory Committee to undertake a study of the basin to assess the ground situation and the storage levels in dams in the Cauvery basin.

The NGO has moved the Supreme Court apprehending a severe shortage of drinking water to Bengaluru and Cauvery basin districts.

It urged the apex court to ensure that the water requirements of Bengaluru and the Cauvery basin districts were fully met to the extent of 26 tmcft in the present water year of 2016-17 from the reservoirs in Karnataka.

“The lack of rainfall is evident by the reservoir levels in the major reservoirs of the Cauvery basin in Karnataka, which have a huge shortfall of inflows, and thereby the drastic decrease in the storage capacities of the respective reservoirs. The approximate live storage of Karnataka’s reservoirs (Harangi, Hemavathi, KRS and Kabini) as on September 16 is only 28.77 tmcft as against the total drinking water requirements of Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mandya and other Cauvery basin districts which is 26 tmcft (approximately),” it submitted.

In an impleading application, B.Pac with Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon, as its president and Mohandas Pai, Chariman, Manipal Group of Institutions, as its vice-president contended that there was indeed an alarming situation in Bengaluru with over one crore population, which required urgent attention of the relevant authorities.

In years of distress and acute shortage of water, there is problem of water sharing with Tamil Nadu. In the present circumstances, it would not stand to reason under law to deny the right to drinking water to the citizens of Bengaluru and Cauvery basin districts, it stated.

Maintaining that its aim was only to highlight the ground realities and present the correct perspective of the hardship and agony of the people, B.Pac contended that the citizens’ right to drinking water as protected under the Article 21 of the Constitution must be given due
attention. 

“It is the basic human and natural right that needs to be protected and ensured at every level by the state,” it said.