Daijiworld Media Network - Chikkamagaluru (SP)

Chikkamagaluru, Dec 19: People residing near Kadur in the district are forced to set aside a part of their meagre earnings to buy water. They belong to some residential layouts located about four km from Kadur.

These people are also deprived of several basic amenities.

Till some years back, these people who predominantly belong to Budubudike, Hakki Shikari and Shillekyatha communities, were staying in tents pitched near the Kadur bus stand. To improve their living conditions, the town panchayat had provided them four residential layouts on Kallapur Road near Malleshwara village, Kadur. These layouts have been given names, Veerabhadrappa, Omkarmurthy, Honnappa and Huchappa, in honour of former legislators from here.

Veerabhadra layout in Kadur

People from nomad families live here. The problem of shortage of amenities is particularly acute in the fourth ward of Kadur town municipal council. Absence of roads, unusable roads, drainage and drinking water woes have been creating lot of problems for the villagers. As civic workers do not visit the layout, the place has turned dirty.

The Kadur municipality has not done anything other than initially providing two minor roads and a drain to the locality. Thereafter, the place is allowed to suffer consequences of total disregard. Kadur gets water from Bhadra water project but there is no water supply to the layout so far. Therefore, the people are dependent on borewell water which is not clean. Therefore, they now buy water at the rate of two rupees per pot on daily basis for drinking purposes.

Although an overhead tank is located in the village, it is meant to supply water to Malleshwara village once in two weeks. Many families say the water they get is grossly insufficient and because of this problem, several families have deserted their houses. They have demanded the town municipal council authorities to come to their rescue and at least provide them enough drinking water.