Owing to depletion of water level in Basavanahole reservoir, the source of drinking water for Sagar town, the City Municipal Council has announced that drinking water will be supplied to residents there at once in every three days.
The requirement of drinking water in Sagar is eight million litres a day. With the present water storage in the reservoir, it would be possible to provide water for another 30 days from now. President of Sagar City Municipal Council N. Lalithamma told The Hindu on Friday that the possibility of providing drinking water from ground water sources was being explored. There were 89 open wells and 35 public borewells in the Sagar town limits. If the drinking water crisis were to aggravate, then the water from open wells and borewells would be utilised to supply to residents through tankers.
The State government had released Rs. 52 lakh to the municipal council during 2014-15 to address the drinking water crisis. In all, eight borewells had been dug with this fund. The installation of a pipeline for providing water from these borewells to houses would be completed at the earliest, she said.
Engineers and revenue inspectors of the municipal council had been directed to conduct a ward-wise survey to know the gravity of situation arising out of drinking water crisis.
An action plan would soon be drawn up to dig new borewells in the wards that were likely to face the problem of drinking water scarcity, she said.
In 2013, the water level in the Basavanahole reservoir had completely dried up by April 15. As a result, supply of water taps was stopped. The State government had released Rs. 70 lakh for removing silt from the Basavanahole reservoir and to improve its storage capacity.
Ms. Vishalakshi said, the drinking water problem would be permanently resolved once the ongoing work related to the project of supplying water to Sagar from Linganamakki reservoir was completed. The project that had been undertaken at a cost of Rs. 15 crore, was likely to be completed in six months, he said.
