Hagalawadi is situated in Gubbi Taluk, Tumkur District, and is part of the Kallambella Vidhana Sabha constituency.
“They say that the district has abundant water thanks to the Hemavathi and the rains, let them visit Hagalawadi,” says Congress leader and former minister T B Jayachandra. And this statement is seconded by the Hagalawadi Drinking Water Action Committee members Jayasimha, M R Rangaswamaiah, H C Suresh, Niranjan Murthy, H N Ranganath, H M Chandrashekhar and others.

This is probably one of the unluckiest villages in the district. While all other villages in Gubbi taluk have abundant water, in Hagalawadi , every drop is precious here.

Mr T B Jayachandra, who was a minister in the S M Krishna government, had worked towards irrigation projects in this region. As a result of his efforts, the special officer on duty of the Water Resources Department had written to the chief engineer of the Hemavathi Canal Region and managing director of the Karnataka Water Supply and Sewerage Board in 2003 and had informed that measures should be taken to provide drinking water to Hagalawadi hobli of Gubbi taluk in Tumkur district.

Krishna government
Water was supplied to the Hagalawadi lake through the Tumkur unit of the canal, which is situated 90 km away. The issue was important to the Krishna government, which wanted to solve the drinking water problem in Hagalawadi and Alilughatta villages, and Jayachandra in particular.

In the year 2003, the Cauvery tribunal was yet to announce its verdict. In the present context, when the verdict has been announced, the departments’ negligent treatment of the problem comes to the fore, say members of the Action Committee. On 14 November 2007, in a letter written to the secretary of the water resources department from the office of the chief engineer (Human Resources Development Institute), has stated, “...the State Government has filed a petition regarding water projects, and it would be best not to go ahead with this scheme until the Supreme Court verdict is out.”

And this is not just a problem for Hagalawadi. Symbolically, it is a problem for the whole State, because the Cauvery verdict does not oppose any drinking water projects. When, then, will the problem of drinking water in Hagalawadi be solved?