DAVANGERE: Water scarcity continues to plague various parts of the state, it is forcing the administration to take unprecedented steps, like deploying police personnel to guard a lake. The Shanti Sagara lake, considered to be the lifeline of Channagiri, Davanagere and Chitradurga, now has a team of policemen guarding its periphery. The administration took this step to conserve whatever water is left in the lake from arecanut farmers, looking to use the water for irrigation.

Section 144 of IPC, which prohibits mass gatherings, has been imposed around the lake, which is also known as Sulekere. Shanti Sagara can hold up to 2.70 TMCft of water with a surface area of 6,550 acres.
Presently,  65 villages of Channagiri get water from the lake. Zilla Panchayat member Tejaswi Patel told The New Indian Express that for the last 10-15 years people were stealing water from Shanti Sagara as their borewells started to fail. According to Patel, tankers would take around 5,000-6,000 litres of water from the lake and sell it for Rs. 5,500 or Rs. 6,000 per tanker. According to him, imposing prohibitory orders became necessary.