Water crisis hits ice plants in Dakshina Kannada district

The water shortage in Dakshina Kannada has affected ice plants functioning in the district. They are not able to meet the increase in demand for the ice and are on the verge of a temporary closure.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, owner of an ice plant in Mangaluru said, “The production in majority of the plants have come down drastically. With the water shortage, several plants in Mangaluru function on an alternate days. Purchasing water daily through tankers is a burden on the ice plant owners. To ensure that we do not lose permanent customers, we are running the show on an alternate days whenever the water is available.”

According to Karnataka Coastal Ice Plant and Cold Storage Owners' Association, there are 63 ice plants in Dakshina Kannada and 67 in Udupi district. A total of 3,200 tonne of ice is produced daily in undivided Dakshina Kannada. However, the production has come down to 1,500 tonne per day.

The non availability of ice has been affecting the fishermen who depend on ice plants for the supply of ice to maintain the quality of fish.

‘Affects fishermen’

The non-availability of ice has affected fishermen. President of Trawl Boat Fishermen Association Nithin Kumar said, “Normally, the boats which come from deep sea fishing leave for fishing after unloading fish at the wharf on the same day. When the ice plants were functioning fully, the ice were supplied to the boats as much as required. Now with the non availability of ice, the boats leave after two to three days of unloading the fish at the port.”

The fishing boats have also been facing water crisis. When the boats go for deep sea fishing (eight to 10 days), they require at least 3,000 to 4,000 litres of water for cooking and other purposes. Now, there is an acute shortage of water as well. The non-availability of ice has affected processing of fish and transportation of fish to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and others states. Huge quantity of ice is required during summer to transport fish to others states to maintain the quality of fish intact. There is a huge demand for fish in Tamil Nadu as the 45-day fishing ban in order to allow fish breeding has commenced in East Coast,” he added. 

‘Dependent on tanker’

Karnataka Fisheries Development Corporation which has three ice plants of 100 MT capacity per day is more dependent on supply of water through tankers.

KFDC MD V K Shetty said, “We are more dependent on water tankers to supply water to these ice plants. In fact, the water supplied from Thumbe vented dam were not sufficient for the ice plants run by the KFDC. As a result, we have been depending on water supply by our water tankers even before the water crisis cropped Mangaluru city. The ice plants are functioning to its capacity to supply ice to the fishing boats and fisher women.”