Severe water scarcity cripples Kalaburagi varsity

The severe drought across north Karnataka has claimed an unlikely victim - Central University of Karnataka, which is reeling under intense water shortage.

Such is the crisis that the university, located 26 kilometres from Kalaburagi City in Kadaganchi village, has not only sent its students on vacation but has told the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) that it will only admit students for the fresh academic year on a condition that students would be ‘transferred’ to other universities if the water problem persists.

The university with more than 2,000 students is just managing with about one lakh litres of water as against the daily requirement of 5 lakh litres. With no sign of rain, every passing day has turned into a struggle for students and staff at the university which is spread across 650 acres. It won’t come as a surprise if the water woes force the university authorities to shut down, at least till the dry spell ends.

At the moment, the university has sent all existing students on vacation since April 1. But authorities are on tenterhooks about the admissions for the 2019-20 academic year, which will begin from June 21.

Commenting on the alarming scenario, Dr HM Maheshwaraiah, Vice Chancellor of the university, told DH, “We have no choice. In fact I have been mulling meeting the President of India and the HRD minister over the scenario. We will wait for another week, and if it does not rain we will apprise authorities in New Delhi and ask them about admitting students.”

The VC further said that for the 2019-20 academic year admissions, they will put a clause stating that admissions would be done only if students are ‘transferred’ to other universities.

“We just cannot function without water. It is the situation that has prompted us to propose this condition that students be moved out to other central universities,” Dr Maheshwaraiah added.

Currently, the university and nine surrounding villages are dependent on river Amerga. “The River Bheema is bone dry and other source Bennetora rivulet has also dried up. Now, the only source of water is Amerga, which is also fast drying up. Tankers cannot serve us every day,” the VC explained.

Faced with water shortage, the university has announced rationing of water. “We shut off water supply after 10 am in hostels and the same will be resumed again at 6 pm in the evening. There are two hostels for boys and girls each with a capacity of 500 students. There are students from various states of the country and if we do not provide water then, no one will join the university,” a senior administrative official said.

Interestingly, the vice chancellor had brought this to the notice of the then HRD minister Prakash Javadekar in a meeting held at Varanasi a few months ago.

“I had told the HRD minister to consider availability of water while sanctioning universities in future,” said the VC.