The Udupi Zilla Krishik Sangh recently took exception to cutting the power supply to 64 irrigation pumpsets of farmers having fields on either side of banks of the Swarna, which it said, would hit the farmers hard. It may be recalled that water inflow into the Swarna River stopped three days ago.
Addressing presspersons here, Kudi Srinivas Bhat, secretary of the sangh, said that the authorities had cut off power to these pumpsets (on Tuesday) on the grounds that the water in the river had to be conserved to meet the drinking water needs of the people of Udupi city. This move would hit 350 farmers’ families hard.
As many as 20 farmers had tried to sink borewells but it had not yielded water. Some other had tried digging open wells, but they too could not get water as there were boulders below. The farmers want water to draw water once a week to protect their existing gardens.
The farmers had stopped cultivating a second crop because of the water problem on the river banks. Though there were two dams against the Swarna at Baje and Shiroor, both were leaking.
The authorities had taken no steps to plug the leaks in these dams despite the sangha bringing this matter to their attention.
Had these leaks been plugged, more water would have been available. The sangh had also urged elected representatives and officers to draw up a plan to construct another dam against Swarna at Bavukadi since a couple of years. But no action had been taken on it.
Though there was lot of talk of getting the water from the Varahi to the Baje dam, it would take a lot of time for it to materialise. Besides even the water from the Varahi would have to be brought compromising the needs of the farmers in the Varahi belt, which could be problematic.
“It is a known fact that every year, Udupi city reeled from the problem of drinking water scarcity. Why were no proactive measures being taken on this matter?” he questioned.
The sangh had submitted a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner on this issue. “If our demand of weekly water supply to the fields is not considered, we will launch a protest,” Mr. Bhat said.
