As the water crisis worsens by the day in the city, especially in the outer zones, the prices of water tankers are skyrocketing. The cost of 12,000 litres of water has for the first time crossed the ₹2,000 mark in parts of the city.
In the absence of any regulatory mechanism for pricing of water tankers, the prices are random and extremely variable. There have been instances of water tanker businesses charging even as high as ₹2,500, for a load of 12,000 litres in Whitefield and Varthur areas, worst affected by the water shortage this summer, sources in the water tanker business said. Even a tractor of 4,000 litre capacity is being sold in the range of ₹700 - ₹1,000, and a 6,000 litre tanker load costs in the range of ₹1,200 - ₹1,500, said Ajay Gowda, a water tanker dealer in South East Bengaluru.
The high demand for water and low supply as many borewells have gone dry due to failed monsoon, has driven the prices northwards. “We are now going as far as 25 km away from the city to get water. The area of commercial exploitation of water is shifting further away from the city. Every trip the tanker travels over 50 km. While we were able to fill a 12,000 litres tanker in under half an hour earlier, it now takes more than 3 hours as the water levels have gone down and become thin. This limits the extent to which we can extract water in a day,” explained Praveen Reddy, a water tanker businessman in Doddanekkundi.
Jayalakshmi, a homemaker from Varthur, said that the water tanker supply was erratic and there was no regulation on them. “If one needs a tanker load of water, we need to book it 2-3 days ahead and even then there is no guarantee that we will get water. It’s like an open bid. When we call tanker drivers, they often say the prices have gone up and give the load we booked for someone who is ready to pay a higher cost,” she said.
However, the prices of water tankers are not the same across the city. A crowdsourced survey by Bangalore Apartments’ Federation showed that on an average 1,000 litres of water in a tanker costs ₹131 in the city ranging from ₹100 in Electronics City to ₹238 in RR Nagar. However, the survey doesn’t include responses from all areas.
Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar recently acknowledged that 25% of the city’s water needs were being met by water tankers and said the State government was mulling on a regulatory mechanism to cap the prices of water tankers.
This has not gone down well in the water tanker industry. “Our costs have skyrocketed and we cannot be forced to do business incurring losses and pay the price for the government’s failure to provide water to residents. We have suffered huge losses during the pandemic and this year too, though there is high demand we are not able to meet it. There are talks of a water tanker strike in the industry, if the government goes ahead with price regulation,” a senior in the industry said, but wished to remain anonymous.
