An old dream of the people of Hagari Bommanahalli and surrounding areas in Ballari district of getting Maalvi reservoir filled with water from Tungabhadra dam will be realised very soon.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah launched the work estimated to cost ₹145 crore during his visit to Hagari Bommanahalli on Monday.
Maalvi reservoir was built in 1972 to augment rainwater and provide irrigation cover to few chronically drought-prone villages in the vicinity. The reservoir also helped in replenishing of underground water table. The dam was irrigating around 7,500 acres falling under eight villages. The dam was filled to the brim for about 13 years since inception. However, owing to construction of tanks in the catchment areas and deficit rainfall, the augmentation of water dwindled considerably resulting in borewells running dry.
Considering that getting the reservoir filled by pumping water from Tungabhadra dam, flowing around 19 km away, would solve the problem permanently, a proposal to this effect was made long ago and all the MLAs representing the constituency assured according top priority to that. However, the proposal remained only on paper.
Bheema Naik, the sitting Janata Dal (S) MLA, who is all set to join Congress, took up the issue with the Chief Minister and not only got the proposal approved but also ensured that the latter laid the foundation for the execution of the proposal.
As per the proposed plan, around one tmcft of water would be pumped from the dam near Rajwal village, for which a pump house, raising main, canal, pumps would be installed. The project is scheduled to be completed within 18 months.
On completion of the project, the command areas (7,500 acres) would be ensured of water for cultivation besides recharging around 1,000 borewells in Hagari Bommanahalli town and surrounding villages.
