Bengaluru, the parched IT capital of India Premium

Households in Bengaluru, dependent on water supply from the Cauvery river or water tankers, are preparing for the current water crisis to worsen as the city stares at a long, hot summer.

Sharfunnisa, 70, a resident of Varthur in south-eastern Bengaluru, has been struggling to arrange for water for her family’s daily needs. As the prices of water tankers have shot up exponentially over the last one month, a few houses in the neighbourhood, all one-room tenements, have now decided to order one water tanker and share the costs.

“A 4,000-litre tanker was about ₹500-₹600 a month ago; now it costs ₹1,000. Over and above this, we need to buy drinking water cans. Our water expenses grew to over ₹4,000 in February. And this is just the beginning of summer. The water tanker operators have been warning us that the costs may double soon,” says Samina Taj, 35, another resident of the area.

Also read | BBMP directs drilling borewells in 58 areas with drinking water crisis

Households in Bengaluru, dependent on water supply from the Cauvery river or water tankers, are preparing for the situation to worsen as the city stares at a severe summer.

Ganga P., a senior citizen who lives in an independent house in east Bengaluru, says she washes clothes less often, preferring instead to hang them out to dry in the hot sun if they have been worn only for a few hours. She also hand-washes clothes as far as possible, to save water. “I have stopped using water to clean the veranda of my house. I mop the floor daily to save water so I don’t have to buy a tanker,” she says.

Also read | BBMP makes registration of water tankers mandatory in Bengaluru

Whitefield and Varthur, which house the Information Technology corridor in eastern Bengaluru, are some of the worst-affected areas by the drinking water crisis. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the city’s civic body, has directed officials to dig borewells in 58 areas which are reeling under the crisis. Of them, 16 are in Mahadevapura, 25 in R.R. Nagar, five in Bommanahalli, and three each in the Yelahanka and Dasarahalli zones.