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Udupi : The Udupi City facing alarming situation as it would be encountering acute shortage of water. The main reservoir of Baje Dam having gone dry without a drop of water in the basin, which the main source to supply water to Udupi City as well as some Panchayats.

Chairing a emergency meeting of Municipal Councilors and Officers to discuss the shortage of water issue at the Udupi Municipality Council Hall here on Friday, 5^th May, 2017, Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister of State for Fisheries, Sports and Youth Empowerment and also district in-charge Minister, said that last year also we had shortage of rainfall and shortage of water. But this year there has been acute shortage of water and we have rationing in Udupi City.

The state government works on to avoid shortage of finance in order to supply water to the people. There should be need to supply water either through tape water or in water tankers alternatively. Some people still no information about the tanker water supply. He said the quality of the tanker water should be good without any contamination of water. It is the responsibility of Municipal officials to supply standard quality water and they should also to find out the source of water. So there should be accountability of the source of water is most important. The officials should link with the tanker water suppliers, he said.

In order to fair supply of tanker water to the people, Municipality should appoint full time nodal officers for 35 ward’s to monitor the supply of water through water tankers in parched areas of city.

Earlier K Ganesh CMC Engineer said the water flow in the Swarna had stopped a few weeks back. The water was now being pumped from a few holes in the Swarna bed from Shirror to Mane bridge and from there to Bandarybettu. Water from Bandarybettu was being pumped to the Baje dam. The water might last for about 15 to 20 days depending upon evaporation of water. Water would available till June 5. Presently 85 to 90 tankers are supplying water to the city.

K Raghavendra, Environment Engineer CMC said that though the city required 22 million literes of water per day. Presently the 35 wards of the city have been divided into two parts. On alternative days 10 mld of water was being supplied to these two parts. In order to supply water for 1.5 hours every day, water has to be pumped for 8 to 9 hours. There are nearly 60,000 house that are using the water supply and efforts are being made in the direction to ensure at least some amount of water is supplied to each house.

Pramod ordered to establish three categories in order to supply tanker water supply. The nodal officers should be available all 24 hours in phone without mute of their phones

. The helpline introduced by the City Municipality receives many calls requesting for tanker water and all attempts are made to address the grievances, the officer said.

Meenakshi Madhav Bannanje, Sandhya Tilakraj, Shobha Suresh Kakkunje, Manjunathaiah and others were present.