The paper uses archival data to comment on colonial urban tank water governance contextualising it to the rapid urbanisation occurring today in Bengaluru, India. Bengaluru’s urbanisation over the last two decades is closely tied to the way the IT and real estate industries grew in the 1990s (1). The growth of these industries is starkly marked by the reclamation and encroachment of urban wetlands and drainage systems, increasing risks of urban flooding and other urban environmental risks (2). Given the instances of urban flooding, an investigation into the past is important, to understand the evolution of governance around the urban environment particularly at junctures of economic development and the implications this has for contemporary water governance.

Through this paper I focus on economic growth in urban areas, arguing that a fragmented governance framework in addition to the politico-economic nature of select industries have impacts on the way urban water governance is shaped. Further, repeated cycles of this mode of governance around urban water have had dire impacts on the urban ecology, marked by extreme environmental risks such as flooding and scarcity over an ecological time scale. Mapping this pattern is crucial for future governance of urban industry and water. In this paper, I use a case study from the early colonial period (1880 – 1920) highlighting textile mills and their relationship with urban water tanks. I juxtapose the historical case study with the contemporary scenario, not as a direct comparative but rather to show fundamental continuities in the governance framework.