Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Mar 23: Chairman of Coastal Development Authority, B Nagaraj Shetty, asked the officials concerned to draw up plans to supply drinking water to villages and towns by using water flowing in rivers and rivulets. He said that the government envisages a plan to meet the water needs of the locals by using rivers flowing in Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, and Uttara Kannada districts.

He was addressing a meeting in connection with drinking water problems in Dakshina Kannada district, organized on Tuesday March 22 at the zilla panchayat office here.

“Every such project should be able to meet the needs of the locals for the next two decades. They can be in the form of minor vented dams, check dams, etc. We should totally do away with our dependence on bore wells in the coming years,” he said. He also requested the officials to come up with a comprehensive report giving details of the number of tube wells in the district, how many of them are not working, available water resources, and problems that have come in the way of drawing drinking water schemes to the gram panchayats so far, etc. He also said that every effort would be made to drinking water emergencies that might occur during peak summer months.

Duly drawing the attention of the officials to the common complaint that the water supplied to households is not clean, he asked the officials to routinely test water samples from these places, and place the relevant reports on record.

Additional deputy commissioner, S Prabhakar Sharma, zilla panchayat planning officer, Takat Rao, vice-president, Dhanalakshmi, and secretary of Coastal Development Authority, K Prabhakar Rao, were present at the meeting.