The Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) will now cover the entire Bengaluru urban district, expanding its responsibility for drinking water, sewerage and wastewater treatment beyond the existing Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) area. The Karnataka Urban Development Department issued the notification on September 24, citing public interest.
The expanded jurisdiction includes the former seven city municipalities, one town municipality and 110 villages that were earlier covered within an area of about 800 square kilometres. The newly included areas span Bengaluru urban district’s North, East, South, Yelahanka and Anekal taluks.
Major locations now included in the BWSSB area include Kumbalgodu, Soladevanahalli, Makali, Dasanapura, Hesaraghatta, Doddajala, Bettahalasuru, Sarjapur, Bommasandra, Hebbagodi, Anekal, Jigani, Chandapura, Attibele, Kaggalipura, Talaghattapura and Bannerghatta.
Under the notification, BWSSB will be responsible for planning, implementing, operating and maintaining drinking-water supply systems, sewerage facilities and wastewater disposal projects through treatment plants across the urban district. The expansion changes the board’s administrative jurisdiction immediately, but residents in the newly included areas should not expect an immediate change in water supply or sewerage services.
The report said it could take several years to develop and maintain water-supply projects in the newly added areas. Although the 110 villages were brought under BWSSB’s jurisdiction in 2007, Cauvery water supply to those areas began only in 2024. The latest expansion therefore creates a larger planning responsibility before equivalent network coverage is available across the district.
Greater Bengaluru Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the city’s growth had already crossed the GBA boundary, with municipalities and gram panchayats around the authority also undergoing urbanisation. He said these areas were effectively extensions of Bengaluru for practical purposes and that experts had advised the government to treat areas outside the GBA as urban areas and part of the city’s expansion.
According to Byre Gowda, meetings involving BWSSB, the Bengaluru Metropolitan Region Development Authority and the Irrigation Department discussed the infrastructure needs of areas outside the GBA. BWSSB has been asked to estimate drinking-water requirements for the next five years, 10 years and beyond. A joint master plan will be prepared for the entire Bengaluru urban district outside the GBA to enable phased implementation in line with actual urban expansion.
BWSSB officials said Bengaluru currently requires about 2,750 million litres of water per day. Of this, approximately 1,950 MLD comes from the Cauvery and 800 MLD is drawn from groundwater. The board is examining additional resources to supply the new areas, according to the report.
BWSSB chairperson Dr N. Manjula said work on the master plan had begun immediately. It will cover network creation in the expanded jurisdiction, construction of ground-level reservoirs, wastewater treatment plants and other action plans. The board also requires information on projected population growth over the next decade, she said, adding that technical work would begin shortly.
The notification places the responsibility for planning the district’s future water and sewerage systems with BWSSB, while the promised master plan and technical assessments will determine the sequence and scale of actual implementation.
