Water BOOST Enabling Innovation for Future Ready Cities 2025

Bengaluru’s water innovation ecosystem is under mounting pressure from environmental degradation, unplanned urban expansion, and fragmented governance. Yet, amid these challenges, grassroots innovation and community-led action are emerging as critical forces for resilience. As India’s “Silicon Valley”, Bengaluru benefits from a strong technological base and entrepreneurial energy, but systemic weaknesses in governance and investment continue to hinder the scaling of innovation.3.6 Bengaluru Water-BOOST diagram for Bengaluru FIGURE 13 Disclaimer note: The stakeholder gr oups and organizations listed in this diagram r epresent a sample of those engaged in this r esear ch. Their inclusion does not imply exclusivity , nor does it suggest that other actors within these gr oups ar e less r elevant or less active. Categorization is indicative and should not be interpr eted as fixed.Bangalor e Water Supply and Sewerage Boar d (BWSSB) + Suez India (occasionally)G1 Karnataka State Pollution Contr ol Boar d + Advanced Centr e for Integrated Water Resour ces Management (ACIWRM) + BBMP Climate Action CellG2 Biome Envir onmental Solutions + FluxGen Technologies + SmartTerra + Boson WhitewaterA1 Imagine H20 Asia + Asian Development Bank (ADB) + Rainmatter FoundationA2 Indian Institute of Science (IISc) + Ashoka Trust for Resear ch in Ecology and the Envir onment (ATREE) + Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)S1 Friends of Lakes + Biome Envir onmental T rust + Arghyam + PNLIT + Paani Earth Foundation + Mod Foundation + Well Labs S2A2G2SE2 E3 E2G1 E5 A1A1 SE1S1 S2E1 SE3E4 Weak enabler Weak enablersWeak enabler At the governance level, institutional fragmentation remains a fundamental constraint. Public utilities such as the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) operate with limited resources and must cope with high non-revenue water rates and rapid urbanization. Policy-making bodies such as the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and the Karnataka Groundwater Authority function with limited inter-agency coordination, while enforcement of environmental regulations remains a challenge. While innovation bodies – such as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Climate Action Cell and the Advanced Centre for Integrated Water Resources Management (ACIWRM) – have emerged, they are still defining their agendas and remain overstretched. Furthermore, it is worth noting that fragmentation is not only evident between G1 and G2 institutions, but occasionally also within individual organizations belonging to these two categories – a dynamic that could benefit from more in-depth exploration for specific stakeholder groups in future analyses. This results in a very weak E1 connection and regulatory frameworks (E4) that are inconsistent and lack support for innovation scaling. Multistakeholder collaboration (E5) is primarily driven by grassroots action. Civil society organizations and citizen groups play a critical bridging role in the absence of formal coordination. Organizations such as the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT), Biome Environmental Trust, Friends of Lakes, Arghyam, Paani Earth Foundation, Mod Foundation and Water, Environment, Land and Landscape (WELL) Labs are active across the city – restoring urban lakes, enabling community rainwater harvesting, piloting decentralized sanitation systems and advocating for sustainable water governance. Source: World Economic Forum Water-BOOST: Enabling Innovation for Future-Ready Cities 32