Water crisis: Revanna wants Rs 5 cr for each constituency

Holenarasipur MLA H D Revanna has sought a release of Rs 5 crore for each Assembly constituency to tackle the drinking water crisis.

He told reporters here on Thursday that despite declaring all seven taluks of the district as drought-hit, no funds have been released for the past two months. He said water table in the region has depleted to an alarming level and water was not available even after sinking borewells for more than 1,000 feet.

 “There are more than 800 villages in Holenarasipur constituency but Rs 60 lakh released by the government is inadequate as Rs 80,000 is required to drill a single borewell,” he said.

He said government had also announced a compensation of Rs 25,000 per acre for crop loss but had not released the funds. He said both Congress and BJP governments have no concern for people and are only involved in allegations and counter allegations.

Water tankers

Revanna said Deputy Commissioner Chaitra had been lackadaisical towards elected representatives. He said even as the district minister had stated that there were funds to the tune of Rs 8 crore available in the DC’s account, Chaitra had refuted the claims and instead said that there were no funds. He said authorities should take steps to supply water through tankers to the affected villages. Revanna said former prime minister H D Deve Gowda has called for a meeting on December 21 to discuss the issue.

Jobs denied

Revanna alleged that the contractors were denying jobs to locals and were instead using excavators for the works taken up under NREGA. “If the district administration fails to take action, it would become inevitable to stage a protest along with cattle in front of the DC’s office. Similar protests will be held near Chief Minister’s residence and RBI office too,” he warned.

Commenting on BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa’s claims of winning 150 seats in the next Assembly elections, Revanna said, instead of talking about elections now, Yeddyurappa should concentrate on meeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and request for more funds for drought relief works.

On a query on whether Y S V Datta was quitting the party, Revanna said these were just rumours and Datta was not leaving the party. He said Deve Gowda considered Datta like his elder son and attaches great importance to his opinion.