India, March 12 -- India' third-most populous urban area is just another city that is being shown the mirror-the dreams of a perfect water supply driven by high-cost engineering solutions are being shattered

Some years ago, at the release of our report Excreta Matters in Bengaluru, I got into a spirited discussion with the city's water and sewage managers. The discussion was about water management in the city, which our research showed was unaffordable and so unsustainable. The engineers disagreed. According to them, they had managed to secure water from the Cauvery, some 100 km away, through pipelines, and so had no reason to worry. Now as this hi-tech city hurtles towards a severe water scarcity, maybe, just maybe, these wise men will ...