This story is from April 1, 2020

Apartments in Bengaluru report 8-10% jump in water usage

With a large number of people staying home and with an added focus on washing hands through the day, several apartments in the city have reported an 8 to 10% jump in water consumption over the past week when Bengaluru remained under lockdown.
Apartments in Bengaluru report 8-10% jump in water usage
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BENGALURU: With a large number of people staying home and with an added focus on washing hands through the day, several apartments in the city have reported an 8 to 10% jump in water consumption over the past week when Bengaluru remained under lockdown.
According to Beautiful Bengaluru, a citizen intervention movement, each individual wastes around a litre of water while washing hands (for a 20-second period) as the tap is not closed.
This wastage happens 10 times a day for each resident, said members of the group.
“Water requirement for cooking and drinking has gone up. Consumption is also more because everyone is now very careful about washing hands several times a day. One should ensure the tap is turned off while soaping hands and reuse RO waste water for other purposes such as watering plant and mopping the floor,” said Odette Katrak, co-founder of Beautiful Bengaluru.
“Overall, water consumption has gone up. A lot more people are staying home right now as a majority of residents are working professionals. The amount of water used for cooking at home and washing hands has also gone up,” said Vishnu Gattupalli, Secretary of Bangalore Apartments Federation’s Whitefield cluster.
The BWSSB is now diverting water away from industries, commercial establishments and towards residential consumers. “We have decided to stop water supply to industries and commercial establishments during the lockdown. They account for 7-8% of the total water supply. We have been instead diverting 100 MLD water to residential areas over the past week,” said Tushar Girinath, managing director of BWSSB.
“Not only has there been increase in consumption, usage patterns have also changed with people staying indoors now. Larger apartments with more than 50 units have seen an 8 to 10% increase in consumption, while smaller apartments’ consumption has gone up by 10% and above,” said Mirza Anwar, BWSSB assistant executive engineer for Mahadevapura zone.

Some report dip in consumption
A few apartments have, however, said their water usage has gone down ever since the lockdown was imposed in the city.
“While we used to get 19 to 20 tankers of water every day, this number is now down to 13 or 14 tankers a day — the main reason being that in all our households, the househelps are on leave. They consume a lot of water while washing dishes or mopping the floor. Now that we are doing the work ourselves, people are becoming more conscious about water usage,” said a member of the management committee of Sobha Hillview apartment in Uttarahalli.
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