AGUMBE: Near Theerthahalli in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district a 9-feet Shiva linga stands on the riverbed of the Tunga. It used to be submerged for most of the year. But now you see the entire linga and a good three feet of rock beneath it. There is no river. “This is the first time we have seen Tunga go dry,” says Dinesh, a local resident.
Theerthahalli taluk is home to Agumbe, once known as the Cherrapunji of the South. But like that place in Meghalaya, it has ceded its title of the wettest place to Hulikal, also in Theerthahalli taluk. Hulikal has about 8,000 mm of rainfall annually. Agumbe has slid to 7,700 mm.
Rainfall in the thousands of mm would sound like manna from heaven to people in Anantapur or Ramanathapuram but it still a shock to travel to Agumbe see the rocky entrails of the Tunga. Karnataka’s drought is nibbling at even places blessed by the clouds.
The Tunga is not the only river to have given up the ghost in this year of a ceaseless seamless summer. Just 5km away at Nadathi village, the Kushavati river has vanished, its expansive valley sweltering in 38 degree C and the riverbed looking more like a highway of sand.
Here too we see what we see in desperate valleys. The tubewells are dry and the riverside people dig into the sand to find their lost lifeline. Holes bored into the dry riverbed cough up a little water. The more fortunate village may have a small pond.
Such ponds and borewells are a common sight on the Malathi, Seetha and Varahi river beds in Shivamogga. The MLA of Theerthahalli, Kimmane Ratnakar, a Congress man, says there are 1,000 such borewells in the river beds in his constituency which includes Agumbe. In an average year, Theerthahalli taluk receives about 3,288 mm of rainfall. Last year, 2016, it recorded just 1,970 mm, a 40% deficit, and the taluk was declared a drought-hit area for the first time since 2002. When in drought, the default response of the administration is to go dig a borewell.
So hear Mr Kimmane reel off the details of the administration’s alacrity: They sank 143 borewells and sanctioned 150 more. The situation was urgent enough to bring out the hon’ble MLA on a Sunday to chair a meeting of the Drinking Water Task Force. While the digging is frantic, there is also confidence that the Malnad region will be delivered: “All it needs is one good year,” says Mr Kimmane. “Let us pray.”
The big switch to areca
Though Malnad receives copious rains, it is in very intense spells over a brief period. The local terrain is rocky and steep, so the run-off is swift. The water does not percolate as the red soil does not retain water. And given the borewell fever, the ground water has receded to 500 ft in most places.
Narasimha Parvata in Agumbe gives rise to five rivers — Malapahari, Nandini, Nalini, Malathi and Seetha. According to Vishwanath Bayer, a former gram panchayat member of Agumbe, the dip in rainfall is not a sudden development. It’s been known for more than a decade that the streams flowing through the forests are growing thinner. The growing population and receding forest cover have led to a rise in the local temperature and monsoons have become progressively freaky, he says.
The erratic rainfall, drying rivers and successive droughts have led to significant changes in the crop pattern in Malnad. Paddy growers are shifting to areca and ginger. Though the shift from food to commercial crops is a common feature, water scarcity is one of the reasons.
T R Krishnamurthy, a 55-year-old farmer of Marahalli village, turned his three-acre paddy field into an areca farm as the stream that used to flow through his village has rapidly shrunk over the past five years. The water coughed up by his borewell is not enough for a water-intensive crop like paddy. “Sixty per centof the paddy fields in our village have made way for areca. Many farmers have even left their fields uncultivated due to the water problem and non-availability of farm labour,” Krishnamurthy said.
Who needs an ark in this drought?
While the drought in Shivamogga district threatens the livelihood of millions, it has brought respite from total isolation for three families living in the tail end of the backwaters of the Varahi reservoir (dam). For 30 years, a family boat used to be the only link to the outside world for the families of Ananth Adiga, Subrahmanya Adiga and Jayaram Bhat of Yekkade village. For the backwaters of the reservoir almost reached up to their door step.
However, the poor monsoons of the last two years have rendered the boat useless as the storage in the dam has not touched even half its capacity. This tail-end area of the reservoir now resembles a play field. “This boat lies redundant in our backyard as we can now drive our motorcycles on the reservoir bed to reach outside world. We are experiencing this luxury for the first time in 30 years,” said Mangala Subrahmanya pointing to his disused boat.