Drinking water crisis never solved in Ch'nagar district

Proposal to supply water from river Kabini pending

Although, two major rivers- Cauvery and Kapila flow through the district, still the district is facing severe scarcity of drinking water. This problem has not been solved by the successive governments.

According to a survey, the underground water level has gone down by more than 30 feet in the last four years. The water recharging activities being done by several government agencies have not yielded results.  Out of 6,342 hand pump borewells, only 4,050 are functioning, 1,237 are under repair. As many as 1,055 are completely dried up.

Besides, 697 mini-water supply schemes are implemented in the district. Drinking water is supplied to overhead tank by digging borewells. Out  of them, only 606 are functioning, 76 are dried up and 15 are under repair. 

In addition, 1,125 borwells have been sunk for mini-drinking water supply scheme, only 953 are working and remaining 117 are defunct.

The district administration had submitted a Rs 106 crore to the State Government to supply water to 166 villages of Chamarajanagar taluk and 131 villages of Gundlupet taluk from River Kabini. The proposal is still in the cold storage.

Recently, the district administration had sent a revised proposal for Rs 195.70 crore to supply water the villages to these taluks. Even this proposal is yet to get a green signal.
Meanwhile, the state government had promised Rs 100 core to ease drinking water crisis in Chamarajanagar district in last budget, but government is yet to release the money.

The people are anxiously waiting for the implementation of drinking water projects and  charged the elected representatives for not putting pressure for fulfillment of demands.

Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Sundarnayak told Deccan Herald that water conservation programmes such as e-wire and other programmes implemented for recharge of ground water level in the villages of Ummatur and Kuderu, are yielding good results.