Udupi: Water supply restricted despite adequate resources: Raghupati Bhat

Pics: Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (HB)

Udupi, Mar 14: Raghupati Bhat, former MLA of Udupi constituency on Thursday March 13 urged resolution of the water supply problem plaguing the city over the past few days.

He was addressing reporters during a spot inspection of Shirur and Baje dams organized by the Udupi BJP factfinding committee.

"People in the city have been suffering because of insufficient water supply over the past 10-15 days. In Baje and Shirur there are ample water resources, yet the municipality started limiting the supply. There is capacity to provide water round the clock till the end of May," he said.

Bhat also blamed the Congress party for the problem and alleged that it was a deliberate ploy. "In Baje, there is capacity to store 4.65 meters of water. In May 2012, they (administration) started water supply once in two days through eight pumps but now there is no need to cut down the water supply," he said.

"During the visit to Shirur and Baje dam with media persons, it was seen that the construction of the dam is not proper, it has some leakage issues. Dredging process should be stopped by the municipality as early as possible, otherwise localities of Baje will face severe water crisis. In the previous year, they had opened two gates but now they have not. Dredging work is still continuing and in the coming days they may face lots of problem due to this," said Prasanna Pandit of Shirur locality.

Suresh Naik, Sunitha Naik, taluk panchayat president were present and they also complained about drawbacks of the ruling party.

He further said that Shirur and Baje dams have enough of water sources, so there is no need to worry about insufficiency of water supply and instead there is a need to educate the public.

“The whole process itself shows that Swarna Project has failed and the municipality's functioning with regard to water supply is condemnable. It is a political conspiracy,” he added. M R Pai of BJP factfinding committee, Dinkar Shetty, Vasanti Shetty, Geetha Shet, Rashmitha Balakrishna, Ramprasad Sharma, and  Kiran Kumar were present.

Later, the city municipality conducted a meeting at Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC).

During the meet, CMC president Yuvaraj said that there is a lack of pressure pumps and promised to stop dredging work in order to to meet the demands of the public.

He said, “We have taken action to supply water to high areas like Rajivnagar, Palekatta, Bachanabailu, and Duglipadavu."

The ruling party said that there are 17,000 water connections of which 7,000 are new. Yuvaraj said the opposition party is trying to mislead the people.

Amrita Krishnamurthy, municipality vice-president, Selina Karkada, Vijay Manchi, and Ramesh Kanchan were present.