Vijayapura: The district which is known for drought and drinking water problem in many taluks where the administration had to supply water through tankers, has made a drastic change in the system today.
The better and coordinated water management system has brought a significant and positive change that the district administration is not required to supply water through tankers anymore.
This target has been achieved by the District Administration and Zilla Panchayat which have saved a good amount of money on tankers and addressed the drinking water issues of rural areas of the district.
It was a common scene in the summer in many parts of the district that the authorities used to hire water tankers and take borewells on rental basis to supply drinking water to the villages in Indi, Sindagi, Muddebihal and Talikot Taluks.
However, this year the scene has been completely changed as the authorities have not used single tankers or taken borewells on rental basis to supply the drinking water to rural areas. Thanks to the efforts of the officials of the District Administration, Zilla Panchayat and Gram Panchayat for addressing the water mismanagement and implementing the couple of drinking water schemes in the region.
According to the officials of Zilla Panchayat, “As many as 39 multi-village drinking water schemes and 1,496 single village drinking water schemes are in place across the district. The water is also being pumped to lakes from the backwaters of Almatti Dam, Narayanpura Dam and Bheema River. With regular water supply from the above water reservoirs the available resources were channelled and also stored sufficient water to meet the requirement of drinking water in summer.”
“Apart from this, stored water in lakes and other sources were supplied to villages only after purifying the water. The funds that were released under 15th Finance Scheme were utilised to improve the infrastructure for the supply of drinking water,” detailed an official who wished to be unnamed.
It may also be noted that the district recorded the highest rainfall last year, which majorly helped to revive the natural resources and also increase the ground water table across the district. The authorities used to spend annually at least Rs 9 crores to address the drinking water issues every summer. However, this year only Rs 56 lakhs has been spent for the same.
Govind Reddy, Chief Executive Officer of ZP, pointed that, “There was a saying for the water crisis of the district that the total number of drinking water tankers required in the State during summer is equal to the number of tankers required in Bijapur alone. In order to tackle this issue, we first addressed the grassroot problems and improved the basic infrastructure like digging the borewells and open wells and filling lakes to channelise the drinking water supply.”
“We also managed to use the available funds wisely to improve the infrastructure. All the efforts have paid the results as we have used single tankers or hired borewells to supply drinking water to villages this summer. We succeeded in achieving the impossible by managing to achieve coordination with the MP, MLAs and other elected members of the district.”
“Though we managed to supply drinking water without tankers this year, we have the challenge to continue the same trend next year too. A plan has been already chalked out for the next summer. We have taken up work under various schemes including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. We are confident that we will continue the same thing next year too,” added ZP CEO Reddy.
