Karnataka: No upkeep! RO plants go dry in drought-hit areas

Hubballi: The state government's ambitious plan to set up 10,000 Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants in drought-hit villages has fallen flat with many of the existing plants  themselves no longer working. Private agencies engaged to maintain them have reportedly not done their job. In fact, a plant in Sugganahalli village in Shirahatti taluk of Gadag district  worked only for a day after the local legislator, Ramakrishna Dodamani inaugurated it with much fanfare a few months ago.

And in Bannikoppa village in the taluk, people  travel two kilometres to buy drinking water for 10 paise a litre from the Reverse Osmosis plant in the adjacent Hadagali village as their plant has become defunct, allegedly owing to  lack of maintenance by the private agency engaged by the Zilla Panchayat. “A Reverse Osmosis plant was started in our village five years ago. But we are still drinking  fluoride contaminated borewell water as it has not been repaired to date after it malfunctioned,” complained Bannikoppa Gram Panchayat president Padmawati Kavalur.

With Gadag being  the district of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister, H K Patil,  water purification plants were set up in as many as 280 of its villages, but a large number have become defunct for lack of upkeep. Ask Gadag Zilla Panchayat chief executive officer, Manjunath Chahwan, and he says the water board has been directed to  repair around 15 defunct Reverse Osmosis plants in the district and assures that tanker water will be supplied to all of them.

The Gadag story is repeated in hundreds of villages of  Haveri, Dharwad and  other parts of North Karnataka.  Angered by the state of affairs, Hangal MLA, Manohar Tahasildar recently took local officials to task for letting over 20 plants of the 54 started in the taluk go defunct.