Officials told to take measures to mitigate water crisis: DC

Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil has directed officials to initiate precautionary measures to mitigate the water crisis in the district during peak summer. He also issued guidelines to solve the row over water.

Chairing a preparatory meeting here on Saturday, he directed the industries to adhere to precautionary measures and reduce usage of water by 30% by February-end.

He said that whenever the taluk faces a water crisis, the Tahsildar is empowered to supply water through tankers in case of emergency for one week. If the water tanker needs to be used for water supply for more than a week, then permission from Taluk Panchayat EO, water supply department and district administration is mandatory. If the officials fail to seek permission, then the expenses cannot be borne from Calamity Relief Funds. The official may have to bear the expenses on his own, he warned.

He urged the MCC officials to prepare an action plan to use water from Thumbe vented dam (with no inflow to the dam) for 140 days instead of 100 days. Without a written order from the Deputy Commissioner, additional water from dams in the district should not be released, he said.

The DC also urged the gram panchayat development officers (PDOs) to maintain a document on the supply of water through tankers during summer.

He said that the water level in all the dams including Thumbe vented dam and AMR dam should be brought to the notice of irrigation department officials on a daily basis.

He also suggested that officials should open control rooms to receive complaints on problems related to water.

The DC also directed the MCC to issue guidelines to consumers on the judicious use of water from March. Civic authorities can make arrangements to supply water on alternate days from April by informing the public well in advance.

Compensation

Expressing displeasure for a delay in distributing compensation for those who have lost land when the MCC decided to store water in Thumbe vented dam for five metres, the DC directed the MCC Commissioner to distribute the compensation amount within a week.

When MCC Commissioner said that those who lost their land have failed to submit documents, the DC said that measures must be initiated to distribute compensation with the available documents from the department.

Satellite survey

The Deputy Commissioner said that a satellite survey to assess the area that will be submerged if water in the dam is stored up to six metres, should be completed by December 10. After the survey, the landowners meeting should be convened, he said.

Additional DC Kumar, AC Renuka Prasak, Puttur AC Dr Raghunandan Murthy were present.

DH News Service