Though two rivers flow in the district, the taluks are facing severe scarcity of drinking water. Cauvery River, which is considered as the lifeline for many districts also flows in Ramanathapura, Rudrapatna of Arakalgud taluk.

But ironically, the villages situated on the bank, are not spared from scarcity of drinking water. It is a similar story of villages on the banks of River Hemavathy too. The residents of Arsikere have no option except drinking water with high fluoride content for the last so many years.

The people of various taluks have been stressing on the need for sinking bore wells in their respective villages. But the bore wells are not the solution for drinking water problems as they become defunct within a couple of years.

The officials were also against this idea fearing mushrooming of bore well mafia in the district. The officers opined that drinking water they could address the drinking water crisis if the government prepares plan to utilise water from River Yagachi and Vatelhole Reservoir.

Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Panchayat Anjan Kumar told Deccan Herald that projects undertaken to provide drinking water to 12 villages in Belur and 58 villages in Arsikere from Yagachi are almost complete. This would prevent people from drinking fluoride content water within a month. 

Survey begins

Several projects are being taken up to solve the drinking water crisis and the survey work has been entrusted to a private company.

If all these projects are completed, majority of the villages in the district would get drinking water. Special projects are being chalked out to solve water crisis in other villages of the taluks.

There is not much awareness on rain water harvesting and the need of the hour is to create awareness on it. The ZP had decided to set up water tanks at around 150 schools in the district in the coming year.

Attempts are on to rope in sponsors for the tanks as each tank costs around Rs 50,000. The schools with vast space would be identified where water tanks would be constructed.