BENGALURU: Environmental activist Anjaneya Reddy has said that he will take out a padayatra to highlight the issue of scarcity of drinking water in Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapura and Kolar districts from March 3. He said that the yatra, covering 300 km, will conclude in Kolar on March 12.
Talking to TNIE, Reddy, president, Shaswata Neeravari Horata Samiti, alleged that no political party in Karnataka has solved the drinking water issue in these three districts. He said this yatra aims to raise awareness among voters in these segments to put pressure on political leaders to incorporate the drinking water issue into their election manifestos. Reddy said, “In the run-up to the state Assembly elections, our one-point agenda is to demand clean drinking water for residents and water for farm fields”.
Reddy said, groundwater from borewells is the main source of drinking water in districts but it is not safe for drinking, according to a report released by the Department of Mines and Geology in 2012. The preliminary report of the Ettinahole project is flawed and water cannot be supplied to the rural districts of Kolar, Chikkaballapur and Bengaluru, said the Central Water Commission in 2012.
Water treated in the second phase of the KC Valley and HN Valley projects is being discharged into lakes, causing cancer and kidney diseases in people and livestock, another report said. “These are the issues that we want people to debate and discuss and make political parties accountable”, said Reddy.