Even as borewells dry up, district administration is yet to get its act together
People in Koppal district are facing severe shortage of drinking water as many of the borewells and tanks have dried up because of the failure of monsoon last year.
The situation in the district is likely to become worse during summer.
Despite an acute shortage of drinking water since the last few months, no steps have been taken by the district administration to find a permanent solution. The town was getting water once in two days, and now it is being supplied once in four days because of frequent power fluctuations at the service reservoir. The residents are forced to fetch borewell water from distant places.
No action yet
The district administration, however, has not initiated any steps to tackle the crisis because of “inadequate funds”.
Recently, it forwarded an action plan for Rs.1.7 crore to the Government, seeking its approval and release of funds for drilling 50 borewells, re-drilling 165 defunct ones, and repairing defunct hand-pumps. The Government is yet to release the additional funds.
Schemes incomplete
The zilla panchayat, which had been implementing several water supply schemes to augment drinking water supply in problem villages, has not been able to complete any of the schemes on time. According to sources, in the last few months, the zilla panchayat had taken up 31 rural water supply schemes under the National Rural Drinking Water Supply Programme at an estimated cost of Rs. 22.25 lakh. While work on one scheme is still on, the others haven't even started.
The engineering division of the zilla panchayat has been working on about 65 water supply schemes at an estimated cost of Rs. 2.99 crore for the last eight months. While work on 38 schemes is ‘in progress', tenders were finalised for 10 more recently. No action has been initiated on the remaining. It had also taken up several drinking water supply projects under the Rajiv Gandhi Sub-Mission Project to augment drinking water in some of the severely affected villages at an estimated cost of Rs. 56.75 crore. None of the schemes have been completed in the last eight months.
The town, which was getting water once in two days, is now getting it once in four days Zilla panchayat has not been able to complete any of the drinking water schemes on time
