A film on urban water supply – Swati Dandekar, Independent Film Maker

THE IDEA
This film will attempt to examine the issue of urban water supply from many different, but convergent points of view. It will be based in Bangalore and use the city as a case study in the planning and management of water supply. Bangalore has witnessed a huge growth in population as well as area over the past three decades. Much of this growth has been driven by a boom in the information technology sector, leading, in its turn, to growth in sectors like construction, transport, and a plethora of other services. Migration patterns to Bangalore, as a result, cut across many economic classes, from the rich and upper middle classes to the unskilled labourers. Water being one of the most basic needs of this entire population, the city government needs to consider not only its quality and quantity, but also issues of accessibility and tariff from the point of view of equity.

The key issues which will be explored are:
• The sources of water: their history, the changes over the past 2-3 decades, and reasons behind the choices of sources being made over this period of time by city authorities

• Ownership of water: Water as a common property resource, and the legislation and tradition controlling its use

• The institutional structures: governance structures that have evolved over this period to manage, plan and control the supply of water to the city, their efficacy and competency, their decision making processes and democratic credentials

• The cost and price of water: how this has evolved depending on the sources that are being tapped, its structure and rationale along with equity; the environmental cost of exploiting different sources of water and their sustainability

The film will raise many questions, and seek answers and ideas from many quarters.

Mainly, it will challenge the complacency of cities that they have the ability to exploit river and ground waters in continuously growing amounts. Water is a scarce resource, it must be viewed as such, and therefore, there needs to be public participation in its proper and sustainable use. 

Its purpose is to encourage introspection on what water means to all of us, how we use it, and start a meaningful public discourse on how we can begin to protect it, manage it, and share it with everybody - those who can articulate their demands, as well as those who can’t.