Bangalore: Heavy rains lashed the coastal and hill districts of Karnataka on Saturday. Met department has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall for the next 2-3 days. Sowing has gathered steam in the state covering 95 per cent of the rain-fed areas.

The monsoon (June-September) this year has been good so far in Bangalore as well as in the Cauvery’s catchment areas, but it was very poor last year.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government seems to be waking up to the need to regulate the growth of state capital Bangalore to save it from facing a more severe water shortage in the coming years.

Governments over the years have not heeded warnings from official agencies themselves that the city is headed for water famine by 2020 if the growth, spurred after Bangalore became the nation’s IT hub in the 1990s, is not regulated.