07/07/2026
A recent visit to another town on the outskirts of Bengaluru where the urgency is palpable: please don’t do just another study, do something that can help address the issue on the ground, say the officials. The challenges are familiar: groundwater is insufficient, can wastewater really be treated safely? Is reuse actually possible?
One of our interlocuters, cautious at first, shares that he has visited the Devanahalli project just to see what’s happening there.
And to me that’s the most exciting part. Over the last month or two, I’ve met several watermen and engineers who have made their own trips to Devanahalli. These were not organised exposure visits, they’d simply heard about the project through word of mouth and wanted to see it for themselves.
They were asking, “What’s really happening there? How did they make it work? And could we do something similar in our own towns or gram panchayats?” This says something important. The idea is starting to spread on its own. People are becoming curious, they’re actively looking for solutions, and they’re beginning to imagine how this could work in their own context.
To me, when ideas begin to travel without being pushed, when people start seeking them out on their own, it means something bigger is happening. Curiosity is growing. Confidence is growing. And perhaps most importantly, more towns are beginning to imagine a different future for water.
Ayushi Biswas, hydrogeologist at Biome
