Chickballapur will get the status of district headquarters along with Ramanagara by June-end. But has it become a victim of "step-motherly treatment" by the government even before attaining the new distinction?

Ramanagara, being Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's constituency, has overtaken Chickballapur in getting funds for construction of office buildings even before government announcing the formation of two new districts carving out of  Bangalore Rural and Kolar districts respectively.

People of six northern taluks of Kolar district, who will be part of the new district with Chickballapur as headquarters, point out that the government should not have made such disparities in allotting funds.

However, they are prepared to forget this disparity with a hope that the government would fulfill their 15-year-old demand. 

The elected Representatives feel that the need for creating a new district from the existing Kolar district should be on priority of the government for four main reasons -distance from Kolar to six northern taluks, number of taluks (11), area (8,223 sq km) and number of villages (3,321) - which are on the higher side compared to Bangalore Rural district, which has only 8 taluks, 1,883 villages and spread over an area of 5,815 sq km.

New buildings

Unlike in Ramanagara, where construction of building for district offices has already started, in Chickballapur the land for office complex is yet to be finalised from the three different lands suggested by the District Reorganisation Committee (DRC) - headed be former additional chief secretary V Balasubramanian - constituted to suggest the government on formation of new districts.

However, the three-storey building housing model grainage of Sericulture Department at Chadalapura on Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway, about six kilometres from Chickballapur town,  has been identified for temporarily establishing the offices of the Deputy Commissioner, Chief Executive Officers of Zilla Panchayat and other important wings.

Despite this delay compared to Ramanagara, a majority of the people in Chickballapur and five other taluks are eagerly looking forward to see their town becoming a home for district offices with a hope that many of their burning problems -water (both for drinking and agriculture), sanitation, traffic, roads, marketing platform for horticulture produces - will get immediate attention.

The residents of Bagepalli, Gowribidanur and Gudibande particularly are happy with Chickballapur becoming the district headquarters as at present it take more than three hours for them to reach Kolar for any work at district-level offices. They can reach Chickballapur in an hour.

Interestingly, the proposed new district will get six taluks of the 11 taluks in the existing Kolar district with Committee recommending the government to bring Chintamani under new district.

Initially there were a minor opposition, mainly from people who were staying in areas bordering Chintamani and Kolar taluks, for including Chintamani under new district.

However, the opposition disappeared soon and even during the public hearings conducted by the DRC a majority of the people wanted the taluk to be included under the new district.

The DRC, taking into consideration the population factor and location of Chintamani taluk has recommended to the government to include the taluk under the new district.

Drinking water

Major demand from the people of Chickballapur before the new district administration would be for drinking water supply as only some areas of the town gets supply of soft water, that too only once in 10 to 15 days.

While many houses do not get soft water supply, others get hard water supplied from borewells, in which ground water level has sunk to below 1,000 ft, twice a week.