Situation report on water ATMs in Bengaluru

Abstract

Bengaluru continues to be in the news for one reason or the other. On one hand our innovation in Information and Bio-technology has received global accolades and in the same breadth the city is grappling with insufficient and often times broken infrastructure. Added to this, the unparalleled growth that the city has witnessed with one of the highest population growths in the world. Sudden increase in population will add extreme pressure on existing services As a resident of this city for a long time, I had personally an opportunity to witness the manner in which these bubble top water cans took over our homes. While at first they seemed to solve everyone s problem, many underlying themes emerges if you scratch the surface. What makes this all the more interesting is that this project seems to have gotten a complete buy in of our government with BBMP even making announcements to install them in each ward. Whether such announcements have any sound research backing is anyone s guess. A major challenge in measuring impact of any initiative of the government is lack of usable data from the initiation stage. This paper brings back the attention to maintaining a database that can help create better targeted policies by urging the authorities to register and map all Water ATMs in the city. The aim of the paper is to bring to light the various facets of this development. While it may be too soon to call it a blessing or otherwise, being aware of the possible impact and being prepared by developing administrative mechanisms, processes and systems to record and monitor data that can eventually feed into larger decisions for the government is important. This paper has categorised the various kinds of water vending machines into four broad categories namely (a) ATMs tendered through BBMP (b) Partnership model (c) ATMs set up under legislator funds/CSR initiatives (d) Commercial RO plants. Further, PESTLE framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, legal and Environmental) has been used to document all the analysis and insights from the field visits, interviews and observations. As a policy recommendation, this paper suggests that the government should realise the long term impact of unchecked growth of water vending machines not just on environment but also on access, equity and right to water. Ground water replenishment through restoration of lakes, strict implementation of Rain water harvesting and importance of community participation has been emphasized. The government must create milestones and a detailed roadmap for achieving for achieving these goals must be laid out and put in public domain for scrutiny and monitoring