A project meant for supply of drinking water to villages is being misused by private persons for irrigating their land. This shocking case has been reported in Yettinabudihal Grama Panchayat in Ballari taluk. The officials have allegedly ignored the issue.
The estimated Rs. 2.6-crore project was proposed before 2010 to supply surface water for drinking to Kammarchedu, Burranayakanahalli, Yettinabudihal, Vigneshwar camp, and Vijayapura camp. A distributory of the high-level canal of the Tungabhadra dam is its main source. With flow in the canal is limited for six months, the impounding reservoir is big enough to store water which will last for six months.
The water impounded in the reservoir, filled prior to the closure of the canal in December last, is now being drawn using a pumpset to irrigate fields in the vicinity where chilli and cotton is cultivated on over 50 acres.
Officials of the Rural Drinking Water Supply Department in the zilla panchayat, who monitor the execution of the project, when contacted, quoted technical reasons to defend themselves. “The work is nearing completion and the contractor is yet to conduct a trial run and hand it over,” is all that they said to avoid talking about the issue.
The project, for reasons known to the officials, has been progressing at a slow pace. Enquiries revealed that the impounding reservoir, filter bed, laying of pipelines, and the mother tank, among other things, were ready. During the initial trial run, a few problems were noticed, which included the need to change the pipeline alignment and installation of a transformer of higher capacity. But they are yet to be attended to.
Local residents, while expressing concern over the inaction of the officials of the department to accelerate the pace of work and ensure that the purpose of the project is served, hope that the senior officials of the zilla panchayat would take a serious view of the issue and initiate steps to not only curb the illegal drawing of water but also get the project completed expeditiously.
