Improving water availability and sustainability by reviving traditional water systems in Bengaluru (India)

About Bengaluru

Bengaluru (Bengalore) is the capital of the Karnataka state, and one of India’s largest cities with a population of 13 million. The city’s origins date back to the 16th century, when a settlement was founded around a military fort in the kingdom of Vijayanagar.

The city became the capital of the kingdom of Mysore, and later hosted the headquarters of the British administration from 1831 to 1881; Britain retained a significant presence in the city until Indian independence in 1947. From the 1950s onwards, the city saw unprecedented urban and economic growth due to mass immigration and its establishment as a global ICT centre. Bengaluru is now a large metropolis extending over more than 700 km², engulfing smaller and older settlements in its expansion. Bengaluru is not inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Improving water availability and sustainability by reviving traditional water systems

Located on a ridge in the Karnataka Plateau, the city of Bengaluru is far away from any rivers and has historically depended on local wells and lakes as its water sources. The city has a history of famine and drought: a famine caused by lack of water between 1876 and 1878 caused 100,000 deaths and prompted the local government to create an ambitious program of waterworks, which included very early use of steam engines to pump water up into the city.  However, and as the population has rapidly increased in the past decades, the city regularly suffers acute water shortage and was at risk of running out of water.

The Million wells for Bengaluru campaign is an ongoing initiative to build one million shallow wells using traditional well-digging techniques in Bengaluru, India. The project is supported by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, who requires rainwater harvesting as essential to urban Bengaluru. The project was designed by the local engineering and environmental studio Biome Environmental Trust. It was implemented by a variety of stakeholders including industries that provide funds, governmental agencies that provide different types of support, and local communities, who are actively engaged in construction and management of wells. The project is expected to be completed in 2025.

In 2015, a mapping exercise found 10,000 wells in the city of Bengaluru, mostly located in the traditional settlements which have been incorporated into the metropolis. The survey also found strong cultural relationships between the communities and their wells, which were mostly employed for domestic use. The wells were built and maintained by the Manu Vaddar community, which has traditionally been digging wells for over 1,000 years across India and especially in Bangalore. Large open wells were built using stones as lining, without any mortar, a traditional skill handed down from father to son. However, traditional well-digging became a marginal practice with the advent of borewells in the 1980s, and the members of the Manu Vaddar community were reduced to doing unskilled labour such as excavation work. By 2015, 750 families continued the tradition of well-digging, although the current generation has lost traditional dry-stone well-building techniques.

In response to the 2015 survey and worrying reports about the availability of groundwater in Bengaluru, the project wants to improve the balance between groundwater extracted and recharged through the construction of open recharge wells. At the same time, the initiative contains an educational component to increase awareness about ecological flows, waterways, and the personal responsibility of citizens to take ownership for the maintenance and survival of the system. The project is composed of four key areas of action:

1. Awareness-raising campaign to inspire action towards digging recharge wells, reviving disused open wells, monitoring water levels, and sharing stories about open and recharge wells. This includes:
   1. events like thematic walks, workshops and photography exhibitions,
   2. developing communication campaigns through social media and articles in online and digital publications, and
   3. establishing strategic partnerships with educational institutions, artist and storytellers to develop communication projects. One of these joint initiatives is Art in Transit, a project to create a large wall mural at the Cubbon Park Metro station, depicting the water story of Bengaluru and painted using mud from the 65 recharge wells being dug in Cubbon Park. During a two-week period, passing commuters could participate in the painting of the mural under the guidance of key partner Srishti School of Art and Design.
2. Support for residents interested in digging their own recharge well by providing design and project management support.
3. Capacity building for service providers like well-diggers, plumbers, architects, real estate developers and government agencies.
4. Strategic partnerships with scientific and academic institutions to develop policy, monitor performance, and document, analyse and communicate the results.

The initiative is directed at all land-owning individuals or organisations, who are responsible for the funding of the project. This includes private individuals and organisations for the digging of wells located on private property and government institutions for wells located on public and common land. The overall cost of the project is expected to reach INR 32 million (approximately USD 435,000 as of December 2020). The cost is borne by the users themselves, with an average cost of INR 40,000 per well (approximately USD 540).

The initiative includes the involvement of several stakeholder groups, such as:

• Manu Vaddar community: the campaign aims to ensure that at least 3,000 families of the traditional well-digging community of Manu Vaddar get regular work. The digging and maintenance of the existing 200,000 wells have generated revenues of about INR 8 billion for well-diggers and ring-makers. This revenue has allowed some well-diggers to improve their economic status, educate their children and invest in their business by purchasing tools and vehicles that will help in their work. The increased demand for their work and their coverage by local and international newspapers have increased their social standing and inclusion.
• Local tradespeople and small enterprises: several small enterprises are associated with the well-making process, including the production of concrete rings to line the wells, plumbing and minor civil works.
• Residents of Bangaluru, who are dependent on groundwater, and need to invest in digging recharge wells and reviving open wells in disuse to improve the city’s water table.
• Local engineering and architecture studio Biome Environmental Trust, as project developers and providers of technical assistance
• Not-for-profit and community organisations related to groundwater management, such as ACWADAM AND Friends of Lakes, who support the implementation of the project
• Private donors like Wipro, who provided financial support for the participatory mapping of urban aquifers in and around Bengaluru.

The main challenges faced by the campaign refer to the difficulties of education and awareness-raising about groundwater, according to key project partners. Groundwater tables and aquifers are largely invisible, and many open wells have been filled with garbage. At the same time, it is difficult to provide accurate modelling of the results of shallow aquifer recharge due to the dynamic nature of extraction of groundwater in the city and the limitations in the current development of science and technology. However, the experience learned during the first five years of project implementation has led to a number of lessons learnt in this regard:

• The most useful way to educate residents and raise awareness has been to provide personal stories of individual well owners and clear case studies. This includes, for instance, examples of localities where extensive groundwater recharge has increased the groundwater table
• In order to develop scientific evidence to support the project, it was essential to establish partnerships with experts in the field, like ACWADAM for hydrogeology.

The “Million wells for Bengaluru” campaign shows the potential for joint public-private multi-stakeholder partnerships to contribute to sustainable urban development and enhanced environmental sustainability. The initiative joins scientific evidence and partners like ACWADAM with traditional practices and communities, merging heritage and science to develop a comprehensive project based on community involvement. Five years into the project, the project team has observed an increase in the groundwater table in places where groundwater recharge wells have been implemented. The campaign is planning to extend beyond the city into the state of Karnataka, as well as other states where it is hydrogeologically applicable.

Source: Vishwanath Srikantaiah, BIOME Environmental Solutions, November 2020