00:13 Aarti: Good evening everybody. On behalf of The Alternative, Arghyam, India Water Portal, Biome Environmental Solutions and all others who've been involved with Catch Every Drop, I extend a warm welcome to each one of you, here on World Water Day. This is the first of the events that we are running to celebrate World Water Day. We are going to be having events running all over the day tomorrow. So, before we start, I wanted to give you a quick introduction of what we've been doing with Catch Every Drop. So, Catch Every Drop started with the alternative and India Water Portal having a conversation on, "How do we engage citizens with the issue of water?" It doesn't escape any of us that Bangalore is fast running short of water. And that is felt even more acutely when the summer comes, and when we are at the mercy of the water-tankers and when more bore wells have been dug and you're not finding water.

01:12 Aarti: So it is a fact that Bangalore is running short of water, we require about 1.3 billion liters every day, to satisfy our population's consumption needs. Not even half of that is coming from the Kaveri river and we're already maximising on what we're getting from the Kaveri river, that's a 100 kilometers away. We know that bore wells are being dug, a lot of them and that's running the ground water dry, without recharging it. All of our lakes and tanks which are our sources of fresh water, are fast giving way to urban development, are being encroached on and the ones that are remaining are also being polluted by the sewage that's leaving our homes, which is the second biggest problem. The fact that we send out 1.1 million litres or more of waste water everyday, out of the city, from our homes. So, it's... We said that it's time to actually take a holistic look at what's happening and more importantly, what can we do individually, as each one of us, to be a part of the solution to this problem? 

02:14 Aarti: So over the last six weeks, The Alternative, we are a media platform on sustainable living, along with India Water Portal, Arghyam and Biome, have actually been looking at what each one of us can do, to save water, starting with our kitchens, our bathrooms, our homes and rooftops, then going on as communities, as apartments, as schools, colleges and campuses having a large amount of surface area, as public spaces and extending to our lakes and tanks. So, Catch Every Drop, we see as the beginning of a movement where all of us can come together and help the city, save its water resources by using it wisely, by actually harvesting rain water through our roof tops, by reusing the grey water that we otherwise send out of our homes, by being a part of the communities that are rejuvenating and refreshing the lakes and tanks that are very, very crucial to the city, but more importantly, to reconnect with water as a whole. We're a population today that what I sort of call as, "We live by the tap and flush relationship with water." We open the tap and there's water, and it doesn't seem like we're running short at all. And when we press the flush, it's... The water's gone and we're happy.

03:32 Aarti: So, we're here today to also understand what happens before the water reaches our tap and what happens to it after it goes, is pressed down or flushed. So I warmly welcome Rohini Nilekani, chairperson of Arghyam, to open this evening. So Rohini Nilekani is founder, chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she setup with a private endowment to work on water and sanitation issues in India. So, Rohini will start off the evening.

04:06 Rohini Nilekani: Hi, Namaskara, thank you everyone for joining Arghyam in celebrating World Water Day. It was really supposed to be a celebration but often since it comes just at the onset of summer and Aarti has so well told us what are the issues and all of us in Bangalore are familiar with them. So, I will use my few minutes, not so much to reiterate and retell you about the problem which all of you already know. But to say that there are many scenarios for Bangalore that we can all imagine, come see that second scenario. And it's not impossible, other cities around the world have done that, they've cleaned up their rivers, they've revived their rivers, they've got this closing the loop happening, they've built up new institutions.

04:55 RN: I see no reason why if we all put our minds to it, that we can't create that new, good, great scenario of a city, that's gone back to what it used to be, glistening with lakes, that is enough water for all means. I think one thing is clear now, that whatever advantage the middle and upper classes had, from seceding from the public systems, to have our own little underground sumps and our own little big overhead tanks and perhaps our little borewells, if we're lucky in our 16x14 or bigger sites. And therefore saying, no matter what happens with the city or the BWSSB or anyone else, I can secede from the dysfunctionality of the public systems. I think in some sense, that low-hanging fruit phase is over. I think now whether we like it or not, we're all in this together. The people who got ousted from Ejipura, and the people who live in the fancy bungalows all around the city. I think one thing is clear that our destiny is common and I think that's a good thing because it makes us all sit up and take notice that we're part of the same problem of upstream and downstream, we're all downstream now in Bangalore. Which means we all have to get together and act and I'm not the expert, there are many, many experts in this room who'll tell us exactly what each of us can and should do.

06:16 RN: I would say that at Arghyam, we are at least committed to this journey for a long time. We care very much how, not just big cities like Bangalore, but how 7500 towns all over the country will begin to create a culture of managing their own water systems, using local resources first, being very careful of their ecological footprint, managing their water responsibilities. Now, water is not just an entitlement, it's an absolute responsibility about how we use it. And seeing how we can develop a culture, hopefully led by Bangalore, about using our water resources properly. I think India's going to have to head to become a low water economy and a low water society, if we expect every citizen in India to have basic water resources, sustainable and safe. And Arghyam is part of that journey, I'm sure each one of you are. So let's celebrate World Water Day with recommitting ourselves that there are going to be complex problems, but there are many, many creative, possible solutions and that we are all going to be part of the solution. Thank you very much. Namaskara.