Farmers and the local community in the hilly and wooden tracts of H.D. Kote in Mysuru district are staring at an impending escalation of man-animal conflict arising out of water stress in the days ahead. There are also fears of severe drinking water crisis in summer owing to reckless exploitation of groundwater for ginger cultivation.
Forest cover
While people in the rest of the Cauvery basin in the State are perturbed over the possibility of an acute drinking water scarcity besides lack of water for irrigation, people of H.D. Kote are concerned over its impact on the animal world with which they share a close relationship.
For, H.D. Kote taluk in the district has a forest coverage of more than 60 per cent and is home to both Bandipur and Nagarahole national parks.
The Kabini backwater coupled with the Taraka, Nugu and Hebbala reservoirs are the main source of drinking water for wildlife in the region during summer. But with the imminent depletion of Kabini coupled with inadequate rain to shore up the groundwater table, there are fears of the backwaters drying up as early as during January or February.
Incidentally, the backwaters play host to hundreds of elephants during summer because of availability of water and fodder, which may become scarce this year. This means animals may be forced out of their habitat in search of fodder and water during peak summer escalating the crisis.
Both Bandipur and Nagarahole are home to a high-density of elephants, which congregate in the backwaters during summer.
While droughts are part of a natural cycle, farmers in the region fear that depletion of groundwater due to its reckless exploitation by ginger cultivators was bound to exacerbate the crisis this year.
Ginger cultivation
H.D. Kote has emerged as a major centre for contract farming of ginger cultivation. It is reckoned that more 15,000 to 20,000 hectares of agricultural land has been brought under ginger cultivation.
Being a water intensive crop, the contractors have sunk borewells and are flooding the field as a result of which drinking water supply through borewells will be affected in the months ahead, warned Vivek Cariappa, an organic farmer from Sargur in H.D. Kote.
Groundwater, which could be tapped at nearly 200 ft a few years ago, has now sunk below 700 ft and this will have a negative bearing on drinking water supply to the local community during summer.
There are also fears of drinking water crisis owing to over exploitation of groundwater
