A day after Aland MLA B.R. Patil strongly opposed Patala Gange, a project aimed at drilling earth deeper into the magma layer for water to meet drinking water requirements, proposed for several arid areas, including his constituency, Aland in Kalaburagi district, Akhil Bharatiya Janwadi Mahila Sanghatan has opposed the State government’s move calling it “most unscientific and devastating”.
Addressing a media conference here on Wednesday, K. Neela, State vice-president of the sanghatan, said that her organisation would not allow the government to implement the project in Aland taluk. She demanded that the government come up with alternative programmes that were not harmful to nature. She stressed that many environmentalists, experts in water conservation and underground water scientists had expressed anxieties over the adverse impacts of the project on nature and human lives.
“The project is not as simple as the government puts it. Drilling 2,000 ft-8,000 ft into the earth and lifting water to satisfy drinking water needs would definitely disturb natural balance. Drilling deep would undermine the earth’s layers possibly leading to earthquakes,” she said. The project, she added, is economically not feasible as the water in the earth’s deep deposit is contaminated with toxic substances such as arsenic, and fluoride and the water thus lifted would not be safe for drinking purpose unless it is purified using an expensive method.
She alleged that WaterQuest Hydroresources Management India Pvt. Ltd, which was keen on bagging the contract for the project, was misleading the government capitalising on the drinking water crisis in some parts of the State.
“The government should initiate a public discourse on the pros and cons of the project and present the instances where such projects were successful without harming nature,” she said.
Natural methods
Ms. Neela blamed the successive governments for not looking for conventional and natural methods of water conservation for meeting water requirements. She suggested taking up sustainable measures such as dredging lakes and tanks, building check-dams and afforestation across rural areas under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), apart from rainwater harvesting initiatives in both urban and rural areas.
“No government took much interest in the effective implementation of MGNREGA ever since it was enacted a decade ago. If works such as dredging tanks and building check-dams were extensively taken up under the scheme, unemployed people would have got work and groundwater table would have been recharged. Even today, it is the only way to meet our water requirements without harming nature,” she said.
