Udupi no exception to water woes in summer

Udupi district is one of the areas in the long stretched coastal belt of the State where people experience scorching summer besides acute shortage of water especially drinking water. Despite the repeated measures taken up by the local civic bodies, the problem has put people in scare with uncertainty. Zilla Panchayath has taken up many programmes in recent years that has failed either in carrying out as per the scheduled plans or has failed to reach the genuine sufferers. The projects have been taken up on yearly basis, besides long term projects intending to reach out every individual in the dry areas.

However, the question that lingers in the minds of the public is up to what extent the plans designed by ZP to wipe out drinking water problem have been successful.
Speaking to City Herald, ZP CEO N Rajashekhar said that the Zilla Panchayat is able to tackle the problem extensively in almost all areas of the district. On the other hand, there are few areas that are remaining where the ZP is unable to tackle it out as the ground water level is increasingly going down.

“We can expect good functioning of the bore wells up to January month. Rest of the three months until the advent of monsoon, we face water problem in spite of the strategies taken to tackle it. As the district comes under percolation zone, life spans of bore wells are very short. However, infrastructural facilities are created in those areas, measures is taken to introduce new ideas,” he said.

Projects like multi-village drinking water schemes, vented dams to harvest river water through large scale water tanks have been taken up.

Multi-village drinking water scheme has been introduced in as many as 10 villages in and around Hebri and Nitte of Karkala taluk in the first phase. Second phase of the programme intends to cover the areas in Kundapur and Udupi taluks.CEO informed that the ZP has brought to the notice of government the problem. “We are extensively planning to build vented dams to harvest drinking water. In fact, we are planning to construct vented dams to small and perennial rivers.

Earlier, we thought bore well would do well, but it has failed. Indeed, we are forced to
take alternative measures,” he added.

He said, “I have already written to the engineer to come up with the list of the areas that has acute problem. We will take up the issue on priority basis. If we are unable to reach out the areas within the proposed time, we will provide them with water tanks. Here, we have to notice one more thing that people sometimes create hue and cry for no reason. If government offers them financial assistances to dig wells, they complain they don’t get laborers to work. Likewise, sometimes they do create chaos for very inane reason,” he added.

Scorching heat has made its way all around the district. Meanwhile, the anticipating scenario of women folks standing in queues before bore wells to fetch a pot of water is not too far. In the midst of all these chaos, ZP seems to be in no worry with plenty of programmes in its banquet to offer cool summer to the public. Sarcastically, reality will be only known in the days to come.