ANY ALTERNATIVE? A civic worker watering Cubbon Road median in Bangalore. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: Not all citizens have access to safe drinking water in Bangalore. Yet, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) uses more than 160 lakh litres of borewell water for its parks, medians and junctions every day.

Bangalore's grass-covered road medians and traffic junctions may have provided the city a green spread but in reality, they are water guzzlers. The most commonly planted Mexican and Bermuda grass in the 55 medians and 68 traffic junctions are expensive and require continuous watering.

While private companies maintain most of the traffic junctions and 16 of these medians in return for advertisement rights, the BBMP uses potable water for the other medians, traffic junctions and the 574 parks spread over 1,600 acres of land. That is something water-starved Bangalore can ill afford to especially when most parts of the city are reeling under water scarcity, forcing people to buy water. Though the water is from the borewells drilled by the BBMP in its parks, it still remains a precious resource that could have been used to quench the thirst of people who can ill afford to buy safe drinking water from private suppliers.

Why cannot the BBMP use treated water? This is because the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board's (BWSSB) sewage treatment plants are not located close to the neighbourhood parks. According to officials, the cost of such an exercise, including transportation, would outstrip the annual Rs. 1.6 crore that the BBMP is spending on watering now.

BBMP Deputy Conservator of Forests Krishna Udapudi told The Hindu that the civic body had realised that use of potable water for its parks and medians was a "waste of the precious commodity". While the usage was high in summer, it was 30 per cent less during winter and negligible in monsoon, he said.

"This is inevitable as we have to maintain the vegetation in the city. We have plans to set up our own treatment plants in lakes and big parks such as the Jayaprakash Narayan Park in Mathikere. We have started rainwater harvesting and are considering converting most green spaces into tree parks that will consume 90 per cent less water as they get deep rooted after a year's maintenance," Mr. Udapudi said.

He said the civic body had started negotiations with the Water Board for using the recycled water from its 18 treatment plants for parks in their vicinity.

For the record, each acre of the 1,600 acres of the existing green space needs more than 10,000 litres of water per day. For an area of 200 square metre of Mexican grass, 150 to 200 litres of water is required daily.

The BBMP has three water tankers of 9,000-litre capacity in all its zones. These are used only for the medians and junctions maintained by the civic body. After the BBMP develops more parks in the new areas it may end up using double the quantity of water. Probably that is why former Mayor Mumtaz Begum's idea, inspired by her trip of China, to wash even roads with water daily, was nipped in the bud.

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