K.S. Eshwarappa, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, on Wednesday demanded that the State government present a white paper on the steps taken to tackle drought in the State.
Speaking to presspersons after visiting the workers’ colony affected by drinking water scarcity here, Mr. Eshwarappa said that though the government was claiming that it had distributed about 1,400 pure water drinking units to the villages, it was not ready to give the list of villages where it had been distributed. The target of the government was to distribute 7,000 such pure drinking water units, he said.
“If the State government did not release the list of these places by May 1, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators would seek an answer from the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H.K. Patil at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru,” he added.
There was no point in just Chief Minister Siddaramaiah going on a tour of the drought-hit regions after April 15, Mr. Eshwarappa said and added that the CM should instead direct all the District In-charge Ministers to return to their districts and supervise the arrangements made to supply drinking water. “If the government cannot provide water, what else can it do? The government should give a free hand to the Deputy Commissioners to deal with the problem of drinking water scarcity,” he said.
Mr. Eshwarappa said that the Ministers and legislators of the ruling party were mostly in New Delhi. “The former were busy lobbying to save their positions, while latter were doing the same to get into the Cabinet. In all this, the people of the drought-hit areas of the State are suffering,” he said.
He said that the residents in nearly 40 houses in the workers’ colony here had to struggle to get water though this hamlet came under the Kaup Assembly Constituency represented by Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, who is also the Udupi district in-charge Minister. BJP leaders T.V. Hegde, Gitanjali Suvarna, and Gurme Suresh Shetty were present.
