Earlier this month, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) chairman Ram Prashanth Manohar sought the support of all MLAs and MPs representing Bengaluru for revising drinking water tariffs amid rising operational costs and financial shortfalls.
Rates were last revised in 2014, and revenues are inadequate to cover the expenses of BWSSB, which has no other source of revenue, Manohar said.
The inauguration of the Cauvery Stage V project recently, which aims to provide water to new areas that lay beyond the reach of the existing water supply system, has raised the BWSSB’s costs further, he said.
The BWSSB’s balance sheet and current water tariffs
The board’s monthly expenditure of Rs 170 crore is much higher than its monthly revenue of Rs 129, Manohar said in his letter of December 2. And the starting of Cauvery Stage V has raised the Board’s monthly operational costs by another Rs 40 crore to Rs 210 crore, and widened the deficit to Rs 81 crore, he said.
The BWSSB chairman also said that electricity costs had risen by 107.3% between November 2014 and March 2024, and operating expenses had increased by 122.5% over this period. Over the past decade, the BWSSB’s pensions bill had increased by 61.3%, he said.
BWSSB estimates that the annual revenue shortfall, projected at Rs 972 crore, could escalate to Rs 4,860 crore over the next five years.
After the last revision in 2014, BWSSB raised tariffs to Rs 7 and Rs 45 per kilolitre (kl) in the lowest and highest slabs respectively for domestic consumers from the earlier Rs 6 and Rs 36/ kl. For non-domestic consumers, the corresponding increases were Rs 50 and Rs 87/kl from the Rs 36 and Rs 60/kl earlier.
The fixed minimum charges for domestic and non-domestic consumers are currently Rs 56 and Rs 500 respectively.
The newest phase of the 50-year-old Cauvery water project
The fifth phase of the 50-year-old project was commissioned on October 16, 2024, to supply drinking water to new extensions of Bengaluru – 110 villages, spread over 225 sq km, that were added to the city in 2007.
Water from the perennial Cauvery river is filtered and transported through pipelines over a distance of 86 km to Bengaluru. Since the city is at an elevation of 900 m (3,000 ft) above sea level, much higher than the river, five pumping stations pump the water to a height of almost 450 metres (1,500 feet). Within the city, the water is distributed through a network of almost 8,000 km of pipelines.
The BWSSB has to bear the cost of pumping the water, as well as service the loans taken to build the supply system.
How the Cauvery drinking water project has progressed
Till the end of the 19th century, Bengaluru’s drinking water needs were served by a network of lakes and tanks in the city, and local wells and ponds. As the city began growing in the 20th century, the Arkavathi river, which flowed along the western edge of the city, became a source for the supply of water to the city.
By the 1960s, however, as the population of Bengaluru hit the 16-lakh mark, the 185 million litres per day that the Arkavathi supplied began to prove inadequate. It was then that the Cauvery was identified as a new source of water for the growing city.
Stage I of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme (CWSS) was commissioned in 1974 to add 135 million litres per day (MLD) of water supply to Bengaluru.
CWSS Stage II followed in 1982, augmenting supply by another 135 MLD. Stage III and the first phase of Stage IV of the CWSS were commissioned in 1994-95 and 2002 respectively to add 270 MLD in each phase. Phase II of Stage IV was commissioned in 2012, adding a further 500 MLD to the supply.
At the end of Stage IV, the Cauvery project had an installed capacity for the supply of 1310 MLD at the water treatment stage (and 1,460 MLD at source) to Bengaluru. This water was being supplied to the core areas of the city, including seven former city municipal councils and one town municipal council, covering a total area of 575 sq km.
Over the last 50 years of the CWSS, however, the population of Bengaluru has grown massively from about 16 lakh to 1.5 crore. In 2014, the state government decided to implement Stage V of the scheme to provide an additional 775 MLD of Cauvery water to new extensions to the city, including the 110 villages added in 2007. Stage V adds 500 MLD and 275 MLD of installed supply capacity in two phases.
Cost of, and funding for the Cauvery drinking water project
The project is funded by a mix of state government resources and loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Stage V involved an investment of Rs 4,300 crore, of which JICA contributed Rs 3,000 crore. A sixth phase is planned as well, at an estimated cost of Rs 5,200 crore.
Since Stage III, JICA has provided loans of more than Rs 9,500 crore for the project: Rs 1,897 crore in 1996, Rs 2,800 crore in 2005, Rs 1,891 crore in 2006, and Rs 3,000 crore in 2018.
The funder has noted that operations, maintenance, and depreciation costs have been increasing faster than income. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is also the Minister in charge of Bengaluru, recently indicated that JICA has sought a revision of water tariffs to meet the financial requirements of the project.
Drinking water demand-supply gap in Bengaluru
Before the implementation of Stage V of the Cauvery project, the supply in Bengaluru was around 65 litres per capita per day on average, much less than the 150 litres per capita per day that civic authorities aim to provide.
The better-planned and established areas of the city receive more water than the poorer areas and villages. These areas on the periphery, comprising almost 200 sq km area, receive only 40-45 litres per capita per day at present.
Residents of apartment blocks constructed by builders in the 110 villages in the outlying areas are entirely dependent on private water tankers or borewells.
Bengaluru’s requirement of water is expected to cross 2,900 MLD by 2031. The combined supply from all Cauvery stages will be around 2,235 MLD (at source), which will still be short of the demand. The proposed Stage VI, announced by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, will supply an additional 500 MLD to Bengaluru.