Profound malaise due to lack of safe drinking water: Nelamangala, Byramangala and Anekal

  The urban district of Bengaluru, the rural district of Bengaluru (Devanahalli, Hosakote, Nelamangala and Doddaballapura) and Ramnagara (Kanakapura, Magadi), where Bangalore Environment Trust (BET) is working on issues related to water with the Local Panchayats and District Administration, groundwater is overexploited and egregiously polluted resulting in lack of safe drinking water to lakhs of people. 

     Pepsico's packaged water bottling factory in the overexploited area of Nelamangala in the Thippagondanahalli reservoir catchment area has wreaked havoc on the quality and quantity of drinking water. The Vrishabavathy river carrying hazardous industrial effluents and domestic sewage has wreaked havoc on quality of groundwater near Byramangala Tank. The industries have made the groundwater in Anekal unusable.

The contents of BET’s letter to the Chief Secretary is presented below:

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Sub: Residents of Nelamangala, Byramangala and Anekal are experiencing a profound malaise due to lack of safe drinking water. 

     The trustees of Bangalore Environment Trust (BET), upon hearing complaints from the locals, have visited and paid attention to the extraordinarily inhuman crisis simmering in Byramangala, Nelamangala and Anekal. 

     BET Trustee Team consists of: Dr Rajmohan, Former Director of ICMR. He was the head of the investigative committee of Bhopal and Endosulphan Tragedy. He submitted technical reports to court and government with respect to Plachimada struggle in Kerala. Dr Shashidhar, Pediatrician. Dr Raje Urs, Former Director of Central Silk Board and Ms Nirmala Gowda, Natural Farmer and water activist. 

     To our utter dismay, we discovered that lakhs of people in the peri-urban area of this great global city of Bengaluru, are facing a critical scarcity of safe drinking water. We are stupefied to find a high degree of health burden that can be directly attributed to drinking of egregiously polluted water. 

   We want to bring your attention to the dangerous parallels between industrialization and deterioration of quantity and quality of groundwater. The corrupt practices of the industries have rendered groundwater in Nelamangala, Byramangala and Anekal unusable. Widespread industrial pollution in these areas is now an established fact and is declared as red zones. The industries are not only using the ground water as a source but also as a sink. The self-healing threshold of water has long gone. With the degree of toxicity and septicity, water is now denatured. Almost 50% of the population, (appox 7 lakhs), living in these areas are suffering from chronic diseases attributed to consuming unsafe, untreated, polluted water. 

     The model Groundwater Bill, 2011, recognizes ground water as a public trust. The judiciary asserts ground water as a public trust as is evident in the Kerala High Court verdict with regards to the Plachimada dispute. Despite that, we find repeated and systemic violations of the public trust by the government. This is an unpardonable case of fence itself eating the crop it is entrusted to protect. 

      The judiciary has time and again upheld the individual’s right to clean water under Article 21 of the constitution. To state a couple of verdicts: In the case of S.K Garg Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors, the court very clearly indicated that the state was under a positive obligation to ensure that water supplied for drinking purposes was potable by testing it on a regular basis. 

     “We have no hesitation to hold that failure of the state to provide safe drinking water to the citizens in adequate quantities would amount to violation of fundamental right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the constitution of India and would be violation of Human rights. Therefore, every government which has its priorities right, should give foremost importance to providing safe drinking water even at the cost of most development programs. Nothing shall stand in its way whether it is lack of funds and other infrastructure. Ways and means have to be found out at all costs with utmost expediency instead of restricting action in that regard to mere lip service” said the High Court of Kerala, in the case of Vishala Kochi Kudivella Samarkshana Samithi Vs State of Kerala. 

     The United Nations has also explicitly recognized the right to water as a distinct entitlement and must be of specified quality. 

     The significance of human life has been reduced to technological proficiency and consumerism. We have from top to bottom cultivated blindingly-loyal relationship with economic growth and excessive greed. The time honored relationships with forests, water, air, soil, life forms and ultimately, to our own psychological-self has been lost. When one’s consciousness is a slave to economic growth and greed, can he or she see with clarity the grave problems of today? 

      On account of these grave developments, the trustees appeal to your good-self to address this issue seriously and urgently. Further, it is needless to mention that the state government ought to take corrective steps on a war footing. 

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