In Bangalore, it has taken control of the city’s water supply to run an extortionist private supply network
Most of India is fretting over a flop monsoon. In Bangalore, however,
some are rejoicing that the rains have failed. They are the city’s
dreaded water mafia.
“Water mafia” was recently coined, but it is a term that
Bangalore’s residents recognise all too well. In many parts of the city
where government water supply has failed, or a scarcity has been
deliberately created, a merry coalition of thugs, local politicians and
even some water department employees run a parallel and private water
supply network that borders on the extortionist.
During the last few summers when the water crisis progressed from
bad to acute, the mafia has prospered. This year, the city’s
predicament on account of a bad monsoon is dire. In a story that runs
parallel to the coal mafia in Bihar and the iron ore mafia in
Karnataka-Goa-Andhra, the city’s water mafia is mining a depleting water
table unchecked and unregulated.
In Bangalore, the private water supply to water-thirsty
neighbourhoods is controlled by water tanker operators backed by the
local corporator, the legislator or a powerful politician. In some
cases, political patronage is open. In others, patrons operate in the
shadows. The mafia has strictly demarcated territories.
This is how it works. Large apartment complexes and big
residential communities are prime targets, though the gangs operate with
impunity in smaller localities too. First, the state water supply is
curtailed or a water connection is never sanctioned to a new building.
Then the mafia steps in to supply water with tankers. Once the tanker
operator has a foot in, he has a virtual monopoly over pricing and
supply.
Water is becoming a huge revenue source for many of Bangalore’s
corporators and legislators who are running the water tanker business
either directly or benami, says R.K. Misra, an urban reforms activist
and member of the city corporation’s Technical Advisory Committee, and
member of ABIDe, Bangalore’s infrastructure taskforce. Misra and his
fellow campaigners have been trying to get the government to rein in the
water mafia by framing guidelines to regulate borewell digging and
streamline the pricing and quality of water supplied. But it has become a
monster too big to handle, says Misra. Water is a bigger challenge in
Bangalore than in cities like Mumbai and Delhi, says Sangeeta Banerjee,
co -founder of apartmentadda.com, a communication portal for apartments
and housing communities in India’s biggest cities. Suppliers are taking
advantage of the skewed demand-supply situation and the situation is
precarious, she says. In some of the more prosperous communities in
Whitefield, a recently developed suburb filled with technology parks,
high-rise residential buildings and sprawling gated communities, the
mafia is in full control. Residents’ associations are afraid of taking
on the thugs.
One such association that spends a few lakh rupees each month on
private water tankers says that they have no choice but to agree to a
price hike per water tanker every few months. A developer who builds
homes for the rich says he had a bad run-in with the mafia, was
threatened, and now steers clear. Both spoke only after being guaranteed
anonymity.
Sensing this middle-class and upper middle-class acquiescence,
the mafia itself has grown bolder. The gangs have expanded to
controlling not just the water supply but other essentials, like milk
supply, cable TV connections, internet connectivity and newspaper
delivery. In many communities, one vendor controls all daily
necessities. The bigger gang leaders roam around with a battery security
guards.
One Bangalore citizen who called himself Murali asked on the
non-profit indiawaterportal.org, “How do we end the goonda raj of the
water mafia in Bangalore?” The irony, he said, is that the mafia
extracts underground water in the vicinity of apartments and residential
areas and in turn sells them to residents at exorbitant prices. “Why
doesn’t the government stop this loot?”
Two years ago, the newspapers were full of reports about a Kargil
veteran fighting against the water mafia in Bangalore. The veteran’s
wife and children were allegedly threatened by the mafia while the man
took shelter within an army unit fearing for his life. The problem has
exacerbated because of the lack of political will, explains Misra. The
government has abdicated and crooks have stepped in, he says.
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