Water crisis in urban India: As taps and borewell dry up, it’s the return of water tanker raj

Urmila Devi’s vigil began at noon. She hurriedly finished feeding her children, picked up the empty gallon drum to line up on the main road. At 2.30pm, there was still no sign of the elusive water tanker. This is not a slum on the outskirts of Delhi but Sanjay Camp in the heart of Chanakyapuri. It is mid-April and the water connection that Urmila shares with 8-9 other families in her lane has already run dry, leaving the people dependent on water tankers for their daily needs.“Every day is a struggle. We wait for hours in line because there is no fixed time. Sometimes the boys and men in our family have to take the day off to climb on the tanker and carry large drums back into the house,” she says, keeping a hawk eye on her drum in the ‘water line’. It is a race no one wins.About 50 km away, a parched Gurugram braces for another scorching summer as the annual water crisis has come early. For Amit Mudgil, president of the Emaar Palm Hills RWA, summer is a logistical nightmare. The 1,500-family condominium consumes 1.2 million litres per day (MLD), with the water sourced from two borewells — until summer dries them up. With no municipal connection, Mudgil coordinates 2-3 daily tankers, each carrying 25,000 litres a day, at a staggering cost of Rs 2 lakh per month. In Mumbai’s Andheri, meanwhile, Kanakia Rainforest housing society spends up to Rs 6 lakh a month on tankers, says secretary Dhiresh Poojary.Welcome to water tanker raj. Whether it is residents of a tony apartment building in Bengaluru’s Whitefield or Gurugram’s lush condos, everyone is on an even keel when temperatures rise. Taps and borewells dry up, leaving people dependent on water tankers to meet their daily needs.Earlier this month, the water tanker association went on strike in Mumbai. The ostensible reason: they found the licensing renewal conditions too restrictive. The strike was called off four days in, after authorities invoked the Disaster Management Act 2005. But not before residents of affected areas were brought to their knees, forced to buy drinking water, work from home and, in some cases, even move home to tide over the crisis.Profit rises, table dipsSubrata Chakraborty, director of the water programme at the Centre for Science and Environment, says that groundwater usage has increased significantly over the years. “Unplanned expansion of cities far exceeds the pace of new creation of water-sewage infrastructure, leading to a perpetually increasing gap,” he says. medium nocaption120433952For instance, Gurugram’s peak demand is projected to hit 700 MLD, while supply is at 570 MLD. The gap between demand and supply is caused by a combination of factors — ageing pipelines in the city's old settlements and a population and real estate boom that is growing faster than the infrastructure to support it. The consistent civic failure translates into bumper summer profits for private water tanker operators, who tap into agriculture borewells to suck millions of gallons of groundwater out of an already overexploited water table and supply it across the city.Economist Ameet Singh, who surveyed 500 housing societies across 19 neighbourhoods in Pune, found that the tanker business can run into Rs 2-3 crore a day in Pune alone, as over 20% of the population is reliant on them for water supply. Over 3,500 tankers make between 22,000 and 30,000 trips per day in Pune. He says, “As the city expands, tankers are the only fallback. Initially, there were plenty of shallow aquifers and wells with groundwater available at 30ft to 40ft depth, from where this water was being sourced. But with these sources drying up, tankers are sourcing from anywhere they can and often, it is untreated.”Mafia tacticsThis dependence has emboldened tanker vendors, who then pressurise societies to pay a heavy price per tanker, or sign year-long contracts, stipulating that when the need arises, they would be the only suppliers. An example of this fear mongering was seen in Pune’s Kharadi, in January. “Our monthly spend on tankers for 850 flats is about Rs 8 lakh. When 100 residents fell sick, we tested our water and found it had high amounts of E. coli in it. Our vendor was supplying untreated water from a sewage treatment plant. When we cancelled his contract, he parked two of his tankers near our tank to block other vendors,” says a resident of the society. The matter is now in court after residents complained to municipal authorities. Yet, fear of retaliation from the vendor and of falling sick again looms large. medium nocaption120433931Experts say the tanker lobbies are not only depleting housing societies' finances but buying water from illegal borewells, exploiting groundwater and ultimately rendering groundwater saline. Groundwater activist Sureshkumar Dhoka says, “With thousands of borewells being dug, saline groundwater will transform Mumbai into barren land. While numerous societies are drilling borewells and selling water to tankers for short-term profits, they're neglecting rainwater harvesting that could replenish aquifers with fresh water during monsoons.”Small progressHowever, there is some relief in sight. In Gurugram, the metropolitan authority plans to operationalise a new 100 MLD plant. An official says, “The water treatment plant at Chandu Budhera will add another 100 MLD per day to the city’s current supply.” Similarly, in Bengaluru, the Cauvery Stage V project which targeted providing Cauvery water to areas that lacked piped water was completed earlier this year. The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board has issued 40,800 new connections in 110 villages. While the situation has improved over the last year, water is yet to flow out of the taps of many households due to some pipeline network issues and high costs.Chakraborty says, “Use of groundwater or treated water requires state level policies. In many cases, either such policies are not available or not updated. Where policies are available, implementation mechanisms require more attention.” Till such time, people like Urmila must wait.Reporting by Himanshi Dhawan in Delhi, Salonee Mistry in Pune, Mohammed Akhef in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nithya Mandyam in Bengaluru, Vishaka Chaman & Ipsita Pati in Gurugram, Chittaranjan Tembhekar in Mumbai