Residents of Kamalapur village staged a unique protest in Kalaburagi on Tuesday by performing the Dheerga Danda Namaskar from Jagat Circle to Deputy Commissioner’s office demanding that the State government address their long-pending issues.
The villagers, including women and children, performed the namaskar on the streets from Jagat Circle to the Deputy Commissioner’s office before submitting a memorandum demanding solutions to the drinking water problem and rural health services in Kamalapur Circle.
The former taluk panchayat member Amrut Goure said that though the government has spent ₹ 4.5 crore to draw water from the Gandorinala Medium Irrigation Project at Belakota village to Kamalapur under the multi-village drinking water supply schemes (MVDWSS), it has completely failed. They alleged that this was due to misuse of funds and substandard works.
The scheme had become dysfunctional, with the faulty design and substandard pipeline resulting in the displacement of pipelines at some points.
Even after spending huge funds for the scheme, the villagers have not drawn a single drop of water from it.
As per test reports, the water from the borewells in the village was polluted and not safe for drinking.
They also demanded that the government improve rural health services by upgrading the existing Primary Health Centre at Kamalapur to a super-specialty hospital. The villages do not have a community health centre and no private doctor stays back in the village by evening, he added.
The government should issue land ownership rights to farmers cultivating on bagair hukum land in Kamalapur village for years, they said.