It's happening again. And earlier.

Residents across Whitefield, Varthur, Marathahalli and parts of Sarjapur Road are reporting that their borewells have slowed to a trickle or gone bone dry. We're only in mid-April. BWSSB is already scrambling, and tanker prices in the eastern suburbs have jumped nearly 30% in two weeks.

Why now? The usual suspects. Too many high-rises. Too little groundwater recharge. Cauvery water that still doesn't reach many newly-added BBMP wards. And a drier-than-usual pre-monsoon in 2025 that never fully recharged the aquifers. Stir those together, and you get a replay of the March 2024 crisis that made national news.

CM Siddaramaiah called an emergency meeting Thursday. He's told BWSSB to fast-track Cauvery Phase V to the 110 villages that are officially inside BBMP limits but still don't have piped water. That project was supposed to go live by December 2025. It hasn't.

On the ground, people are improvising. Apartment complexes in Whitefield have switched to treated wastewater for flushing and gardens. RWAs in Sarjapur are pooling orders to negotiate tanker rates — which, frankly, is the only reason some families are still getting water at a reasonable price. One RWA president in the area told me, "Last year we said never again. Here we are, same script, April version."

What would actually fix this? Enforcing rainwater harvesting rules on existing buildings. Stopping the unregulated borewell drilling. Fixing leakages in the distribution network, which still lose up to 40% of supplied water. Until then, Bengaluru's summers will keep testing the city's patience. And its pipes.