Kalasa-Banduri Nala Horata Samiti leaders, who met the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal chairman J.M. Panchal and other members of the tribunal at Circuit House here late on Thursday evening, requested them to consider the plight of thousands of families which had been awaiting implementation of the project for drinking purpose for the past several decades.
The former Minister Malharigouda S. Patil, samiti president Vijay Lingaiah Kulkarni, Belgaum district JD(S) president Ashok Pujari, farmers’ leaders Kalyanrao Muchalambi and T.T. Murkatnal met the tribunal members.
‘Without water’The samiti apprised the team members about how thousands of families in nine taluks of Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag and Bagalkot districts were suffering without water for drinking purposes. They said the Mahadayi river was flowing over a 35-km stretch in Khanapur taluk of Belgaum district.
The river basin had a yield of 210 tmcft water during a year. If the project was implemented, drinking water needs of residents of Ramdurg, Bailhongal, Saundatti of Belgaum district, Ron in Gadag, Badami of Bagalokot district and other villages and towns in Gadag and Hubli-Dharwad would be solved to a great extent, they said.
They said the Samiti itself was spearheading the people’s struggle for the past 13 years to implement the project that envisaged utilisation of only 7.56 tmcft of water from Mahadayi basin for drinking purpose, by diverting the required water from Kalasa-Banduri nalas, the tributaries of Mahadayi into the Navilteerth dam across Malaprabha river in Saundatti taluk.
