Water rationing to households in Mangaluru begins today

MANGALURU: Water rationing to households in Mangaluru city will come into effect from Wednesday. This comes after a lot of deliberation on whether there should be rationing or not, in view of the water level going down in Thumbe reservoir.

District Minister U T Khader said they are using this as a last resort, as they do not want to take any risks. According to authorities, the existing water level of 4.90 metres (7.30 MCM) is enough for less than 28 days if water is supplied daily. Under rationing plans, it has been decided that water be supplied to households by pumping it from the reservoir for four continuous days and stall the pumping for the next two days.

Meanwhile, the blame game over scarcity of water continues, with Khader accusing BJP MLAs Vedavyas Kamath and Bharath Shetty of not showing interest in raising Thumbe dam’s water level from the present 6 metres to 7 metres. He denied that BJP MLAs were consulted while taking decisions about the issue.
“As MLAs, they did not consult me, nor have they written any letter in this regard. I called them twice for this,” he added.

Further, Khader said that it will be embarrassing for the BJP MLAs if there is a discussion on the issue. “I do not want to indulge in politics. We should not fight over this,” he said.

Khader said he has apprised CM Kumaraswamy about the need to station a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team at Sampaje instead of Suratkal. Referring to experts, he said chances of landslides in Sampaje are more in the future.In that case, it will be difficult to rush the NDRF team to Sampaje from Suratkal, he said.