Water, water, and more water! It is the scream of people all around the country right now. While some regions are being swamped by massive rainfall, others, particularly those in southern India, are suffering from a lack of rain. Top metro cities such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai have been experiencing a water problem in recent months, which has impacted the real estate companies as well. Water is the most important component in life, and purchasers are scared of it while purchasing or renting a property.
As the country suffers from severe drought, various businesses, including IT and manufacturing, have suffered. According to Niti Aayog’s 2018 Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) study, while 93% of India’s urban population has access to ‘basic water,’ there are still significant inter-city and intra-city disparities. Over 100 million people are likely to be affected if 21 major cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, reach zero groundwater levels by next year. The country’s real estate companies would be impacted as well, as developers have been compelled to postpone projects.
Water Scarcity in Urban India
Water scarcity has had the greatest impact on Hyderabad, as a result, the city’s real estate companies have suffered tremendously. While on the one hand, real estate companies in Hyderabad have been at a halt to their construction projects due to a lack of available water, on the other hand, purchasers are avoiding properties that lack adequate water facilities. With people’s attention shifting more to water availability in residential units, projects with ample water resources and rainwater harvesting facilities receive priority, while others are overlooked, leading the real estate companies to decelerate.
Groundwater depletion, dried lakes and reservoirs, and limited private tanker water delivery are the causes of the city’s acute water issue. As a result, high investment expenses make it difficult for homeowners to invest in real estate. Despite the government’s efforts to revitalise the housing market, demand is declining. The reduction in water supplies in Hyderabad has also had a significant impact on development activity. As a result, the project’s completion would be delayed by 6 to 9 months.
The flood calamity could not have come at a worse time for the builders in Hyderabad, who were celebrating the resurgence of the real estate market after nearly 5-years of depression. The real estate companies are again feeling the heat, and several builders have paused their operations. Some of the major variables that have contributed to this downturn include:
Priority is given to drinking water requirements
As Hyderabad suffers a water shortage, the government’s top concern is to provide enough drinking water supplies. The summer months have caused reservoirs to dry up even further, causing the Hyderabad Metro Water Supplies and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) to limit piped water supply. Naturally, the choice of water supply for other demands falls lower on the priority list. As a result, businesses such as real estate are finding it difficult and costly to meet their water requirements.
Groundswell water resource depletion
In addition to a low monsoon in 2018, the scorching summer months this year have severely decreased the groundswell water levels. As a result, the real estate business, which is heavily reliant on water supplies for construction completion, has had to rely on alternative sources of water, such as water tankers.
Some Hyderabad real estate companies have begun to plan for the future by using novel construction techniques that can assist reduce water consumption. Other ways include building stormwater collection and rainwater harvesting systems, which can improve groundwater quality and production.
Water tanker expenses are driving up real estate prices.
Due to the acute water shortage, priority to drinking water supply, and reduced groundswell levels, the real estate sector has been forced to resort to desperate measures, such as purchasing tank water, to meet their immediate water needs. However, water suppliers charge outrageous fees for these tankers, increasing the expense of real estate companies and having a detrimental impact on the firm.
Delays in project completion
Water scarcity daily implies that critical working hours are lost, construction timetables are thrown off, and project completion dates are missed.
- Project relocation to a location with an appropriate water supply
- To compensate for the losses caused by the water crisis, builders in Hyderabad are attempting to offset losses by moving or starting projects in areas with adequate water supply or near water bodies such as lakes. However, this has resulted in their missing out on certain ideal locations that are experiencing significant water shortages.
The Sand Crisis
The sand crisis has also led to a slowdown in the Hyderabad real estate market. Sand is a vital component of a building, but restrictions on local sand procurement owing to illicit mining, rising river bed sand prices, and other factors have forced builders to rely on imported sand. Sand costs nearly 10% of the total cost of building, thus any increase in its price will automatically raise both the construction cost and the final price of the homes. In reality, the combination of water scarcity and sand scarcity has pushed real estate companies in Hyderabad to cancel hundreds of development projects.
Drinking water is in short supply in some city outskirts due to erratic supplies. Some areas only receive water once a week. Complaints are pouring in from all across the city about the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (HMWS & SB) inconsistent supply.
Alternative Strategies Used by Real Estate Companies
Seer of Water
A water seer is just as effective as technology that creates water out of thin air. People in rural areas must frequently travel long distances in search of safe drinking water. Some real estate companies in Hyderabad are employing this ingenious method to alleviate the water crisis. A water seer is someone who collects water from the environment. Using proper temperature variations, the moisture content in the air is absorbed and condensed. The water is then collected underground and recovered for daily usage by a water pump. A water seer can be erected in almost any place. It produces more than ten gallons of pure drinking water per day and can thus significantly help to alleviate the water problem.
Water Filtration at Low Cost
Instead of relying on main supplies of water, the real estate companies in Hyderabad are implementing this concept of filtering already used water. Filtration might be less expensive than acquiring or carrying fresh water across drylands. Some of these low-cost filtering systems may purify water from contaminated bodies for daily usage. The filtration system might be as simple as a bucket used as a reservoir. During this stage, large contaminants can be removed. Cleaning products will be used in the second step of purification to remove any hazardous viruses, bacteria, and pollutants.
The Water Wheel
Real estate companies have understood that the water wheel is a cost-effective rural solution to the water dilemma. This approach was developed in India around 4000 BC. Water collection is another challenge in rural areas because even when fresh water sources are available, people are unable to carry water and store it in communities for an extended period. The water is stored in drums and other containers that are prone to the development of insects and other disease-causing organisms. This water is difficult to transport because it is generally done by hand. Thus it’s one of the alternative ways used by real estate companies to avoid a water crisis.
Smart Technology
Smart Water Management is the activity of planning, producing, distributing, and managing the use of water resources through the use of an array of IoT technologies meant to promote transparency and make more reasonable and sustainable use of these resources.
Since it is applicable to a wide range of industries, including real estate, agriculture, farming, industry, services, and cities. The real estate companies in Hyderabad are implementing smart technology to avoid the water crisis by monitoring water usage in homes, checking water levels, inspecting drinking water quality, identifying chemical leaks in rivers near plants, tracking pressure fluctuations throughout pipes, and inspecting water quality in aquariums are just a few of the many beneficial applications.
Water supply digitization
This is an intriguing concept that has been embraced in certain water-stressed countries. Even when water pumps and sources of water are established in rural areas, there is no set method for ensuring that water is used properly and that there is no waste. The majority of the extraction is done by hand, and water is a commodity that can be particularly difficult to ration due to the nature of subsurface storage. Water digitization entails the installation of a digital metre and a tap card at all such water facilities.
Depending on the nature of the extraction, the access to water on the cards might be set based on the population in a family or the village. The tap card will have a daily limit, and emergency transactions will be permitted only on rare occasions. This is something that may be instilled in urban settings as well. When compared to rural homes, urban homes produce more wastewater. Real estate companies are using Water digitalization as one of the effective ways to resolve the water crisis.
The end of Hyderabad’s water crisis is in sight
The water situation in Hyderabad became acute last year when all four reservoirs that supply water to the city dried up for the first time in 30 years. Soaring temperatures, blistering heat, and dwindling groundwater levels exacerbated the woes of the Greater Hyderabad region, which is home to over ten million people.
The drinking water crisis in Hyderabad may soon be a thing of the past, due to the State government’s expedited building of two enormous drinking water reservoirs near the city. The reservoirs, each capable of storing 20 tmcft, would meet the water needs of not only the twin towns but also the neighbouring villages’ growing populations.
There was widespread concern about how the water issue in Hyderabad might play out this year. Despite guarantees from officials, many sections of Hyderabad including real estate companies experienced serious water shortages as early as April.
People who planned to buy a flat in Hyderabad had to reconsider their plans because the problem is aggravated in colonies where water is not provided on alternate days. Another difficulty is the inconsistency of the supply schedule, with some villages receiving supplies late at night.
The new 171-kilometre pipeline runs through colonies in Ghatkesar, Hayathnagar, Saroornagar, Keesara, Maheshwaram, and Ibrahimpatnam. According to Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS & SB) officials, supply to the colonies will necessitate an additional capacity of 3-5 MGD derived from the Krishna, Godavari, Manjeera, and Singur projects.
Members in Kukatpally, Miyapur, Madinaguda, Chandanagar, and other colonies, as well as residents of gated communities, must spend up to Rs.2,500 per month for water tankers. Though the scarcity affects numerous areas throughout the city, most of them are in the western quadrant, where the rampant building has impeded the natural source of water supply. Dammaiguda, Old Bowenpally, Karkhana, Miyapur, Hafizpet, Lingampalli, Chandanagar, Yousufguda, and KPHB are just a handful of the locations where water scarcity has been observed on a regular basis. Gachibowli and Madhapur are two affluent areas where people rely on water tankers. Vanasthalipuram, Sainikpuri, Balaji Nagar, and other localities have a little better situation.
The government has taken significant steps. A decent monsoon and positive government actions kept the situation from spiraling out of hand. This year, the government initiated a large campaign to install water metres to reduce water waste, raising citizens’ awareness. This initiative enabled individuals to monitor and control their water usage, as well as make everyone aware that water is a costly resource that should not be wasted.
The necessity for reservoirs became apparent as the city’s two primary drinking water sources, Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar, began to dry up, partly due to encroachment and shrinking storage capacities that were insufficient to meet rising demand. The State government agreed to build two additional reservoirs in Keshavapuram in Ranga Reddy’s Shamirpet Mandal and Malkapuram in Yadadri Bhongir’s Choutuppal Mandal.
Even if Manjira and Singur dry up, the two additional reservoirs would solve the drinking water problem not only for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority but also for the 60-100 villages bordering the Outer Ring Road.
Closure
Hyderabad, one of India’s biggest metropolises, has been suffering from a severe water deficit for the past year. A poor monsoon in 2018 caused one of the greatest water crises in Hyderabad in recent years. As individuals scramble to secure even enough drinking water, it is natural that water scarcity has impacted many water-dependent segments.
As a result, real estate companies in Hyderabad have developed the aforementioned options, making it easier for people to live in Hyderabad.