Basavaraj Rayaraddi, Minister for Higher Education and district in-charge, has directed officials to tour the district to identify villages that are likely to face drinking water shortage and take steps to solve it.
Presiding over a Karnataka Development Programme review meeting here on Monday, he said that the groundwater table had depleted in many villages owing to insufficient rainfall for the second consecutive year.
He directed the officials to bring drinking water schemes under the Nirantara Jyoti scheme to ensure uninterrupted power supply and to avoid a drinking water crisis during summer. The Minister also wanted Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company officials to submit a list of drinking water schemes that were to be covered under the scheme with cost estimates so that funds could be arranged.
The meeting was informed that of the crops on about 1.49 lakh hectares (ha) in the district were affected by drought in the kharif season. The total area under cultivation was 2.52 lakh ha. Now, farmers were preparing the land to take up sowing of the rabi crop. The Joint Director of Agriculture said that the work on carrying out a survey was on and a list of affected farmers with their survey number and bank accounts would be submitted soon.
Mr. Rayaraddi directed the Joint Director of Agriculture to to consult the local MLAs before submitting the survey report to the government.
Expressing his displeasure over the inordinate delay in recharging borewells drilled under the Ganga Kalyan scheme, Mr. Rayaraddi directed the Executive Engineer to initiate steps to ensure that power connections were provided to these borewells within three months.
Karadi Sanganna, MP; Doddanagouda Patil, Raghavendra Hitnal, Iqbal Ansari, Basavaraj Patil Itagi, and Amarnath Patil, legislators; Shekarappa Nagaralli, Koppal Zilla Panchayat president; M. Kanagavalli, Deputy Commissioner; and R. Ramachandran, zilla panchayat chief executive officer, were present.
