Flood-hit Krishnagiri villagers arrange own coracles

Krishnagiri: With no help from officials, the monsoon affected people trapped in Bogipuram village of Shoolagiri taluk in the district have arranged for a coracle service to daily cross the river till the flood waters recede.

“Our Bogipuram was cut off from the main stream of life for more than a week as water flows 15 feet above the road level bridge built across the Chinnar River in spate,” 29-year-old M. Amutha told DC.

Amutha, a construction worker added, “Coracle services began on Sunday after waiting for officials to act. As no help came, this forced us to make self arrangements for an alternate transport service.”

The coracle, a round shaped boat, came here from Mettur. The person who was given permission by the villagers for operating the service charges '5 per head for each trip.

However, the villagers, whose children study in the Shoolagiri government school, are in a tight spot whether to allow their children or not to use the coracle service for crossing the river daily to reach the school.

They are afraid because of an old incident in which few people got hurt due to electrocution in a similar situation after the low hanging power cable touched the water surface leading to the mishap when the victims were returning home by a coracle. The wire crosses the river to give power supply for Bogipuram.

As 13-year-old T. Jeevitha, a class 8 student of Shoolagiri government higher secondary school said, “I am the last to move out of Bogipuram as already all the students in our village have migrated to Sholagiri and stay in their relatives’ house.”

Jeevitha who came out of her village on Sunday afternoon by crossing the river on a coracle added, “Our parents are worried about us travelling in the boat having no safety measures and also because of the low hanging electric wire, risking our life daily to reach the school.”

The villagers asked the district administration to construct an over bridge at the place to avoid the villagers from taking risk when the inflow into the Chinnar river increases and creating trouble for them.

On Sunday, the water level in the Chinnar dam that looked dry for many decades was measured as 29-ft in height against its total storage capacity of 32.80-ft in height.

In Shoolagiri, the Kuppammama lake, one among the seven lakes coming under the PWD department in this taluk, has just one foot more to brim. The PWD officials have taken all preventive measures to avoid the lake bund from getting breached. Other six lakes here receive insufficient inflow and possibility of they getting filled depends on the monsoon, say PWD officials.