Deputy Commissioner Muddu Mohan said on Tuesday that the present water at the Baje Dam across River Swarna, which is being supplied to Udupi city and its seven neighbouring villages, would last for one month.
Addressing presspersons after inspecting the water at the dam here, Mr. Mohan said there were two dams against Swarna – one at Baje and one at Shiroor. The storage capacity of the Baje dam was 1.65 million cubic metres, while that of the Shiroor dam was 0.65 million cubic metres — a total capacity of 2.30 million cubic metres. However, all the water at the Shiroor dam had been exhausted. Currently, there was only 1.10 million cubic metres of water in the Baje dam for public distribution.
Last year, water in Baje dam reached the height of 4.21m but this year, there was only 3.85 metres of water in the dam. Hence the Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) was providing water to the city only on alternate days. This system would continue for the next month as well. At present, the water to the nearby fields was being allowed once in eight days. But this might be stopped soon. “Given the present situation, we are giving priority to providing drinking water,” he said.
Legal actionMr. Mohan urged the people of the city and the nearby seven villages and the farmers to cooperate with the District Administration on this issue. “People should not use water supplied by the CMC to water their gardens. All the building constructors would be instructed not to use municipal water for construction work till the end of summer. We will take legal action against those found violating these directions,” he said.
Usually there was a little rainfall during the end of April in the catchment area. “Hopefully, the situation will ease once there is rainfall in the catchment area. Else, the CMC would have to pump water from three to four large pits which were holding in areas through which the river passed,” he said.
As regards the district, the administration was supplying water through tankers to eight villages suffering from water scarcity in Kundapur taluk. Another eight villages in the same taluk might require water from tankers in a few days.
The government had released Rs. 2.5 crore for 195 drinking water projects in the district. It had also released Rs. 50 lakh for Udupi city, Rs. 33 lakh each for Karkala and Saligrama towns, Mr. Mohan said.
