Officials attending a progress review meeting at remotely located Elaneer village in Belthangady taluk were in for surprise when the residents demanded borewells for drinking water purposes, on Tuesday.
Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat CEO M.R. Ravi, who presided over the meeting, wondered why the residents who had a number of natural streams in the village were demanding borewells. Elaneer is located atop the Western Ghats bordering Samse village of Mudigere taluk, Chikkamagaluru district. The CEO said, if necessary, drinking water could be supplied through small vented dams and directed the officials to immediately prepare an action plan. Work could be undertaken under MNREGA and even the jurisdictional ZP member, Sowmyalatha, would spend part of her grants for the same, he said.
Responding to residents’ woes of inadequate power supply and lack of manpower to attend to emergencies, MESCOM’s Assistant Executive Engineer, Shivashankar, said low voltage problem would be addressed in a fortnight while the services of a lineman would be provided by the neighbouring Chikkamagaluru division. In two months, three more transformers would be installed in the village, he said. Former gram panchayat member Arun Kumar said the anganwadi building, community hall and hospital building built three years ago have not been inaugurated. Mr. Ravi said it would be inaugurated shortly and promised to provide one more anganwadi building near Gutyadka school in the village.
