Bengaluru, Aug. 31: Bengaluru, India’s IT hub, generates an average of 6,000 to 8,000 tonnes of toxic electronic waste every year. With the quantity of waste increasing with each passing year, the process of recycling it is becoming a cause for concern with only a small percentage being streamlined as per the e-waste management system. In a study conducted in Bengaluru, Rajyashree N. Reddy, a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota who also holds a masters degree in environmental science from Yale University, presents Bengaluru’s current status on technology and the modern waste management system envisioned for the city.

What is Bengaluru’s position in the technology sector that contributes largely to generation of e-waste in India?

It is called India’s Silicon Valley and the bulk of this waste is generated by the IT firms of the city. It is estimated that Bengaluru constitutes 33 per cent of India’s share of software exports. Additionally, 30 per cent of computers in the IT sector become obsolete every year. This is processed with few or no safety precautions by petty recyclers and scrap dealers or informal recyclers drawn from the city’s marginalised communities.

What about highly toxic waste? Is that also handled by informal recyclers?

Toxic waste such as mercury requires highly sophisticated equipment that a city e-waste management organisation or a scrap dealer cannot afford to possess. It isn’t a backyard kind of disposal system. The Indo-German-Swiss initiative along with the state pollution board for e-waste management stopped the informal recyclers citing unsafe methods and environmental factors.

Bengaluru has a system of e-waste management that functions to an extent. But is there still leaks in the system of waste management along with extensive toxic electronic waste entering the country from outside?

There is no specification on all IT firms ensuring a proper disposal of their waste and in that sense there maybe leakages. India is a source for dumping e-waste from developed countries and despite regulations, transnational dumping of e-waste continues to happen in India. This easily enters the country and the state as waste is miscategorised.

What is the way forward for management of e-waste?
The onus of appropriate disposal of waste must lie on the producer of the electronic device. This is a model that a few tech parks in the city are considering employing. India, though yet to develop an e-waste legislation, must consider this to manage its e-waste.

An eight-year-old report on river diversion prepared by engineer G.S. Paramasivaiya, which has been lying in cold storage since, suggests building of 37 small dams and two “garland canals” along the western face of the Western Ghats to divert the flow of the rivers for the benefit of farmers, towns and cities. Bengaluru, which is already making near optimum use of Cauvery water, obviously needs to consider other options to meet the needs of its growing population and the Paramasivaiya report could hold the key to its future source of supply.

According to the report, the west flowing Netravathi river water, which has been wastefully draining into the sea, can be diverted to feed Bengaluru and other areas. It estimates that about 90.73 TMC can be diverted to 40 drought affected taluks in seven districts. Fortunately, the report finally seems to have caught the imagination of the administration which now appears to be considering it. A senior officer of the department points out that drinking water will be the next big concern for growing cities like Bengaluru. “We are already over utilising the Cauvery and after the completion of the last stage of that drinking water scheme, the city will need to look at other options. As no move has been made to link rivers of north and south India, we must at least encourage use of water from our own rivers for our people,” he says, however, cautioning that this must be done only after taking care to protect the environment and human settlements enroute.

The Paramasivaiya report has suggested diverting west flowing streams and rivers such as Netravathi and Kumaradhara to the east to provide drinking water to Bengaluru city and its outskirts, Chikmagalur, Hassan, Mandya, Tumkur, and Kolar districts. It also suggests recharging the ground water by using existing tanks as storage dams.

While the diversion of the rivers will not unsettle habitats enroute on as big a scale as other irrigation and drinking water projects have done, it could threaten the ecology of the Western Ghats, fear conservationists.

But the project, which presents the tempting prospect of providing drinking water to 107 lakh people and 102.74 lakh livestock, besides decreasing the farmers’ dependence on rainfall, may win over such concerns.

The fact that it aims to recharge the ground water in drought prone districts of the state by using the existing tanks to store excess river water could also recommend it highly to the authorities.

But whether this will be enough for them to clear the dust off the report and seriously consider its recommendations, is another story altogether. Residents can only hope for an early brainstorming on the water crisis that is threatening to arrive at their doorsteps soon.