Water Pollution in Rural India: Field Notes from Karnataka’s S.M. Gollahalli
We visited S.M. Gollahalli in Bengaluru Rural district to understand how wastewater is managed and whether villagers here perceive open drains as a serious public health hazard.
Anjali V Raj and Priyanka Jamwal
Greywater from household kitchens and bathrooms in S.M. Gollahalli flows into the open stormwater drains that traverse this village in the outskirts of Bengaluru. Livestock waste from facilities near these houses flush into the same drainage network. Adding to this potent mix is stormwater runoff. These drains lead away from the habitation to nearby fields, where some of the wastewater is diverted into small collection ponds — farmers use this water to irrigate and fertilise their land. The rest of the water continues to flow through ditches and feeds into rajakaluves that winds up in the Arkavathy river.
The village has a system of household waste collection, segregation and disposal system that prevents at least solid waste — apart from livestock waste — from entering these open drains.
The water bodies of Gollahalli don’t make headlines like the foaming lakes of Bengaluru city, about an hour away, signalling a tendency to perceive water pollution from domestic sources as a problem unique to urban areas. In rural India, except for agricultural pollution, all other anthropogenic sources of water pollution haven’t been given attention until recently. With the launch of the central government’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission scheme in 2019, piped water supply is now reaching more and more homes, which means the generation of wastewater would inevitably increase.
It is therefore critical to design and implement interventions to manage wastewater in rural areas where the supply of safe drinking water is affected.
We visited Gollahalli in Bengaluru Rural district’s Doddaballapura taluk to understand how waste is managed and whether villagers here perceive these open drains as a serious public health concern. This blog post documents what we found.
Both surface and groundwater sources in Gollahalli are under threat
Household greywater, livestock waste and sometimes blackwater (child faeces and urine) combine in the open drains to create sewage with high levels of contaminants. This is not unique to Gollahalli. There are numerous studies (such as 1, 2, 3) reporting contamination of water resources (both groundwater and surface water) in rural areas from domestic pollution sources such as greywater drains, leach pits, septic tanks and livestock waste.
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Under JJM, local bodies only receive funding for water supply. It converges with another central scheme for treatment of the used water — the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G). In its second phase, the SBM-G plans to manage livestock waste and other organic solid waste generated in villages through the installation of biogas plants through an initiative called Gobardhan (Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources — DHAN). The scheme supports rural communities in managing their solid waste (biodegradable) effectively. But its efficacy is yet to be seen in villages like Gollahalli.
Are the open drains a nuisance or a threat to public health?
The villagers complained about the stench from the drains and that it was a site for mosquito breeding. But they said that as long as water in the drain was flowing, they were not worried. To ensure that there are no obstructions, each household cleans part of the drain near their houses once in two to three days. The Gram Panchayat cleans it only once or twice a year.
The villagers did not perceive open drains as a health concern; they did not correlate the incidences of malaria and diarrhoea in the village during the monsoon to the wastewater drain despite this being a major issue.
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Another common sight we encountered during our fieldwork was piles of manure stacked in both private and common lands. These are dumped for curing — the final stage of the composting process. In Gollahalli, villagers follow a simple process of drying it in the sun, disintegrating it into a powdery form before applying it to their fields. Surprisingly, some of these mounds were placed dangerously close — less than three metres — to groundwater sources like functional borewells, which supply drinking water to the village. Although these sources are deep, the risk of contamination is high during the monsoon when the water table rises and leachate from these dumps infiltrate the water table.
Manure isn’t perceived by villagers as a threat to water quality
We asked the villagers about the possibility of manure heaps contaminating their water sources to get two different responses. Some reported that they place the dumps away from water sources to prevent contamination while others told us that they did not consider livestock waste as a threat to drinking water sources. This might be rooted in age-old traditional practices that use cow dung or manure for different domestic purposes and as fertilisers, which makes the handling or presence of such wastes innocuous. Even though the panchayat occasionally clears manure piles and prohibits dumping in the vicinity of water sources, some villagers continue to dump their livestock waste here.
Even when water sources are clean or are not immediately vulnerable to getting polluted, there is still a risk of contamination along the distribution network. In the village, we observed that in some areas, drinking water supply pipelines were submerged in stormwater drains. Leaks or breakages in these pipelines is a risk to these drinking water supply channels and, consequently, to public health.
We need more clarity on important issues related to rural wastewater management
Given that livestock waste accounts for a huge portion of wastewater in Gollahalli’s drains, it’s necessary to look into livestock management and study what the safe lateral distance needs to be between wastes and water sources to prevent contamination. When there is no clarity regarding safe distance between pollution sources like waste dumps and leach pits, and water resources, it’s difficult to design management measures that ensure source protection.
While most of the villagers collect treated water from Water ATMs (RO) for drinking, there are still many who use water directly from borewells for potable use. This raises another issue of sporadic monitoring of water quality in rural areas. Seasonal groundwater contamination might go undetected, thereby negatively impacting the health of villagers. Both the JJM and the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) mandate seasonal monitoring of drinking water sources — both groundwater and surface water bodies — but enforcement is sporadic.
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Under SBM-G, Gobardhan provides multiple benefits; renewable energy source, environmental sanitation, bio-waste management, manure to promote organic farming and improves savings. Both SBM-G and JJM schemes aim to manage greywater generated from kitchens and bathrooms at the household or community scale. However, stormwater drains contaminated with livestock waste dispersed along roadsides are still a source of concern.
As of December 2022, Gollahalli village is yet to be covered under SBM-G and the villagers continue to practice their traditional methods for waste and wastewater management. Hence the extent and effect of SBM-G in terms of pollution source management and prevention of drinking water source pollution is yet to be seen.
We express our sincere thanks to Lakshmikantha N.R. (ATREE-CSEI) and Chidananda Murthy for their immense help during the field visit and Umesh anna (ATREE) for driving us around the village. We also thank the villagers of S.M. Gollahalli and Yekashipura for sharing the information about water supply/ waste management and allowing us to click field photographs.
Edited by Kaavya Kumar
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