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BENGALURU — India’s tech hub, Bengaluru, may soon run out of water like Cape Town in South Africa, which is facing a severe water crisis, a statement from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said on Wednesday.

“Bengaluru is one of the 10 metropolitan cities in the world that are quickly moving towards ‘Day Zero’ (when the cities will completely run out of water),” said the statement quoting a study by the CSE’s Down To Earth magazine.

Beijing (China), Mexico City (Mexico), Sanaa (Yemen), Nairobi (Kenya), Istanbul (Turkey), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Karachi (Pakistan), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Kabul (Afghanistan) are the other nine cities that may soon run out of water, the study mentioned.

While the number of water bodies in Bengaluru has reduced by 79 per cent due to unplanned urbanisation and encroachment, the built-up area has gone up from 8 per cent in 1973 to 77 per cent, it stated.

According to the study, the city’s water table went down from 10-12 metres to 76-91 metres in 20 years, while the extraction wells have gone up from 5,000 to 450,000 in 30 years owing to increasing population. The city’s over 10 million population is estimated to reach 20.3 million by 2031, growing 3.5 per cent annually, the study said. “Bengaluru uses only half of its treatment capacity to treat waste and a substantial amount (of waste) is dumped into its waterbodies,” it noted. —