Taps dry up in India’s Bengaluru as it fast runs out of water: ‘we’re taking turns to do everything’

Bhavani Mani Muthuvel and her family of nine have around five 20-litre (5-gallon) buckets worth of water for the week for cooking, cleaning and household chores.

“From taking showers to using toilets and washing clothes, we are taking turns to do everything,” she said. It’s the only water they can afford.

A resident of Ambedkar Nagar, a low-income settlement in the shadows of the lavish headquarters of multiple global software companies in Bengaluru’s Whitefield neighbourhood, Muthuvel is normally reliant on piped water, sourced from groundwater. But it’s drying up. She said it’s the worst water crisis she has experienced in her 40 years in the neighbourhood.

City and state government authorities are trying to get the situation under control with emergency measures such as nationalising water tankers and putting a cap on water costs. But water experts and many residents fear the worst is still to come in April and May when the summer sun is at its strongest.

The crisis was a long time coming, said Shashank Palur, a Bengaluru-based hydrologist with the think tank Water, Environment, Land and Livelihood Labs.

“Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and the infrastructure for fresh water supply is not able to keep up with a growing population,” he said.

Groundwater, relied on by over one-third of the city’s 13 million residents, is fast running out. City authorities say 6,900 of the 13,900 borewells drilled in the city have run dry despite some being drilled to depths of 1,500 feet. Those reliant on groundwater, like Muthuvel, now have to depend on water tankers that pump from nearby villages.

Palur said El Nino, a natural phenomenon that affects weather patterns worldwide, along with the city receiving less