Udupi: Kodankoor residents threaten to boycott LS polls if CMC failed to address water woes

Udupi, Apr 2: A non-governmental organisation has urged the Udupi City Municipal Council to ensure proper distribution of drinking water to Kodankoor area soon.

Addressing presspersons here, Raviraj Shetty, president of the Kodankoor unit of the Mahiti Seva Samiti, said that the Udupi City Municipal Council had started water rationing in the city citing the decreasing level of water at the Baje dam against the Swarna. The Municipal Council was supplying water once in three days now.

But this had resulted in disruption of water supply and the people living in the Kodankoor area were suffering a lot due to water scarcity. Though there was enough water in Baje dam, the Municipal Council had resorted to water rationing and created water scarcity, he said. 

Instead of supplying water once in three days, water should be supplied on alternate days as this would address the water problem to a large extent. If the water problem in Kodankoor was not addressed soon, the residents might have to boycott the parliamentary polls, he said.

Though the municipality had claimed that it was supplying water through tankers, so far only six tankers were being operated in Kodankoor. This was not enough for people living there. “Where are the lakhs of rupees being spent for water supply through tankers going?” he asked.

Though some officers from the Udupi City Municipal Council got transferred, they returned to their old posts within months. Though there was no water problem, the officers had created it [water shortage] to loot the municipal coffers, he said. Though the Municipal Council had called for rejuvenation of old wells, only a few wells had been rejuvenated. The Municipal Council should clean the remaining wells so that people could use water, Mr. Shetty said.

G.A. Koteyar and Gita Suvarna, office-bearers of the samiti, were present.