Over 24 villages across Mysuru district are facing acute drinking water shortage and the district administration has started supplying potable water through tankers. Of this, 11 villages are in Mysuru taluk and 13 in Nanjangud taluk.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mysuru Zilla Panchayat Shivashankar told The Hindu on Monday that he had instructed executive officers of all seven taluks to provide information on water availability in the villages on a daily basis. He said that along with other officials, he would monitor the situation in villages across the district every day till the end of summer. Work to revive borewells and lay new pipelines are going on briskly in hundreds of villages, he said adding that this is to ensure drinking water supply till May-end next year.
Fodder banks
Meanwhile, the Veterinary Department has opened fodder banks in six places and started distributing dry fodder to farmers. The department is going to start fodder banks in another 10 places in the next few days.
P.M. Prasad Murthy, Deputy Director of Veterinary Department, said that six fodder banks had already been set up in Jayapura, Ilawala and Birihundi villages in Mysuru taluk. The department has mobilised over 162 tonnes of fodder from irrigated places such as K.R. Nagar and T.Narsipur taluks, he said. He said paddy was harvested in these two irrigated taluks and the department had purchased dry fodder (of paddy) from farmers and stored them in fodder banks, from where they were being sold at ₹3 per kg.
Mr. Murthy said there was no incidence of outbreak of any diseases among livestock in the district in the wake of drought. However, the department is carrying out a vaccination drive, he said.
Mr. Shivashankar said that the department through the district administration had submitted a contingency plan to the State government seeking ₹500 lakh with which it planned to provide nutritional supplements and medicines to the animals. To a question, he said that as of now there was no need to set up a goshala in any part of the district.
