Efforts are now on to launch a broad-based public movement to save the Indrani rivulet from pollution here. With garbage and waste being thrown into it, this rivulet has been reduced to a dirty drain.
Water from three streams join together and form a small rivulet called Indrani Tirtha at Indrali here. This rivulet then meanders down through Beedinagudde, Kalsank, Matadhabettu, Nittoor, Kambalakatte, and Kodavoor areas in the city to join the sea near Kalmady.
With garbage being thrown into this rivulet, it becomes an open drain by the time it reaches Kalsank. In fact, every summer, residents of Kalmady and surrounding areas downstream hold protests against the foul smell, increase in mosquitoes and contamination of wells. They blame the discharge of sewage along the route of the rivulet for its pollution. According to an estimate, a large number of wells close to the rivulet are contaminated now.
However, a movement has been launched on a social media networking site now under the banner, “Indrani Ulisi”, to save the rivulet from pollution. Srikanth Shetty, activist, said: “If we allow this rivulet to run in its pure form, it will solve half the drinking water problem of the city during summer,” he said.
The backwater fishing which used to be carried out in the rivulet earlier has stopped. Manoj, an autorickshaw driver and resident of Kalmady, recalled his childhood days and said that a lot of fishing used to take place in the rivulet, but it had stopped now.
Due to the pollution, even the agricultural land near the river have been left fallow. Balakrishna Kodavoor, secretary of Indrani Tirtha Kolche Nirmulana Samiti, said that farmers used to cultivate paddy and coconut in over 800 acres of land in Kodavoor and Kambalakatte.
“Now cultivation is going on in just about 400 acres because of pollution in the rivulet. Untreated water from the Sewage Treatment Plant at Nittur is entering the rivulet and polluting it even more,” he said.
In 2017, the samiti arranged for a test on the rivulet water. The report from NITK-Surathkal stated the water was contaminated. “We are planning to move the District Court here on this issue and make the Udupi municipality, district administration and Pollution Control Board respondents in the case,” Mr. Kodavoor said.
