Volunteers with the National Service Scheme (NSS) of Alva’s educational institutions will focus on building ‘kattas’ (weirs) across ‘thodus’ (small streams) in and around Moodbidri this academic year, M. Mohan Alva, chairman of Alva’s Education Foundation, said on Wednesday.
Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the four-day 10th Biennial Lake Conference here, he said the volunteers have already built six ‘kattas’ now and the foundation plans to build at least 25 this year. These structures would help recharge the groundwater table and ensure that water was stored come summer, he said.
Mr. Alva said the foundation has gone for rainwater harvesting methods on its campus and it had ensured water supply during summer.
Opposing road-widening projects in the eco-sensitive Western Ghat belts, Ananth Hegde Ashisar, former chairman of the Western Ghats Task Force, claimed that widening the Shivamogga-Tirthahalli, Shivamogga-Honnavara and Kaiga-Mundagoda roads would destroy 150 lakh trees.
If the Shishila-Bhadrapura Road is widened, the project will damage the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats, he added.
The government has already axed about one lakh trees for widening the highway between Mangaluru and Karwar, he said.
Mr. Ashisar said the proposed river diversion projects in the Western Ghats would be challenging ones affecting the ghat region. He claimed that the government is now examining the feasibility of diverting 50 tmcft of water from the Aghanasini in Uttara Kannada to Bengaluru.
Drawing attention to the destruction of trees sheltering honey bee colonies in the Western Ghats, he said it was time for the government to go into conservation mode. Mr. Ashisar said 22 rivers took birth in the Western Ghats. Also, 11,000 streams and 180 tributaries of rivers originated from the ghats. The ghat region once had 14,000 ponds or tanks.
