Premium
This is an archive article published on November 23, 2022

‘No crisis, water bodies filled to the brim’: Sangli collector, MLA deny Karnataka CM’s claims

“As per my information, none of the villages currently suffers from any water problem,” Sangli district collector Raja Dyanidhi told The Indian Express on Wednesday.

Basavaraj Bommai, water crisis, pune water crisis, Sangli water supply, Sangli, Pune news, Maharashtra government, Indian Express, current affairs

A day after Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai said that around 40 villages of Jat taluka in Sangli district have demanded their merger with the southern state due to water crisis, the district administration has said that none of the villages in question had sought water tanker from the district Collectorate in the last five months.

“As per my information, none of the villages currently suffers from any water problem,” Sangli district collector Raja Dyanidhi told The Indian Express on Wednesday.
The district administration said there are 67 villages in border areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka. “Of 40 villages which passed the resolution 10 years ago for inclusion in Karnataka state, only eight faced water crisis in May-June. We had to provide eight water tankers to these villages. The tankers made 28 trips in a day. After June, when it rained, the water problem of these villages disappeared.”

Jat MLA Vikram Sawant said, “Not only is there no drinking water problem in these villages, they have adequate water for irrigation as well.”

Story continues below this ad

Throwing more light on the resolution, Sawant said, “Ten years back, there was drought and villagers were struggling for water. At that time, the villagers had urged the Maharashtra government to either provide adequate quantity of water or give them permission to merge with Karnataka.” No one is making such a demand now and water is available for the villages, he added.

The protest by the villagers compelled the Maharashtra government to revise the Mhaisal project, Sawant said. “The Mhaisal project has been extended till these border villages. Besides, the Maharashtra government also helped the Karnataka government by allowing them to lift water of Krishna river. We gave them 6 TMC water. In turn, the Tubachi-Bableshwar project implemented by Karnataka government in borders helped 42 villages of Sangli district. The natural overflow of water from the project helped lakes, wells and borewells fill up,” Sawant said, adding that there were at least four lakes in the border villages which are all filled to the brim at present. “In last two-three years, rainfall has been good in this part of the state and this why it has faced less severe water crisis,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement

You May Like

Advertisement