Tale of contrasts: Two Karnataka villages approach severe drought differently

A tale of two regions facing severe drought

54-Karnataka Karnataka- An areca nut field in Chitradurga district | Bhanu Prakash Chandra

KARNATAKA HAS HAD at least 15 drought years in the past two decades. This year, because of 45 per cent shortfall in rain, 156 of 176 taluks have been declared drought-affected, and Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has sought 02,064 crore from the Centre as drought relief.

As the state copes with the situation, THE WEEK looks at two regions—Challakere and Gadag—which showed contrasting approaches to the problem.

A GHOST VILLAGE

“Life is a curse! All I need is five spells of rain in June to survive,” says Shivanna, a farmer from Challakere taluk in Chitradurga district, about 200km northwest of Bengaluru. “I am banking on shenga (groundnut) crop, as all my fruit farms have withered. The rain god has no mercy.”

The rain-fed district has no other major source of water; the bore-wells, lakes and tanks are dry with consecutive droughts and overexploitation of groundwater. While all six taluks in the district have been declared drought affected, Challakere and Molakalmuru remain the worst affected. The Vedavathi, the sole river in the district, is now a meandering path of sand, and Chowluru village, in Challakere taluk, is turning into a ghost village with farmers abandoning their houses and farms to migrate to cities in search of work. Shivappa, for instance, had pledged his two acres of areca nut farm to drill bore-wells. When one failed, he ended up drilling another. After three failed attempts, he migrated to Bengaluru in search of work.

Affluent families, too, are finding it difficult to survive. Mallikarjunappa Gundappa, in his early 60s, used to grow areca nut in three of his 20 acres and also had a fruit farm. The drought killed his trees. “We have no income today,” he says. “I drilled six bore-wells but got no water. I ran up a huge debt. My father was the village chieftain. How can we go begging for a menial job in the city, just to remain alive?”

The drought has turned people against farming. Says Nagaraj, former gram panchayat president of Meerasabihalli, “We grew paddy just once in the past 10 years. This time, we will not sow anything even if it rains. We have burnt our fingers many times and sunk in debt.”

With no agriculture income, the women and children are forced to pick seeds fallen from neem trees lining the highway. They sell these for Rs10 a kilo at a local shop.

The farmers are facing a new hurdle, with banks refusing fresh loans citing their low CIBIL score. “Farm loan waiver is a disaster,” says Rajashekhar, a groundnut farmer. “The banks are now insisting that a farmer should have a CIBIL score of 775 to be eligible for loans. Is it some cruel joke?”

THIRST FOR SUCCESS

Rashmi Saidapur, 26, a homemaker in Kurtakoti village in Gadag district, has a tap in her courtyard to collect drinking water. “Finally, I don’t have to walk miles to fetch water,” she says with a sigh.

Like Rashmi, women across 343 villages in the district are no longer terrified of drought. Gadag, which suffered 14 years of drought in the past two decades, has finally become “drought-resilient”. A drinking water project taken up in 2016 changed the district forever. The Design, Build Operate and Transfer (DBOT) project has helped flow water from the Tungabhadra river to every home. The rural households now have 24/7 piped water for just Rs40 a month.

Says Manjunath Chavan, CEO of Gadag zilla panchayat, “The two DBOT projects (one came later) cover the entire rural population (6.55 lakh) by harnessing 74 MLD (million litres per day) from the Tungabhadra and Malaprabha rivers.”

North Karnataka had suffered severe drought for several years. Though measures to tackle water scarcity—like setting up of anytime water kiosks—had been initiated, H.K. Patil, Gadag MLA and former rural development minister, wanted a more permanent solution. He decided to implement a comprehensive multi-village project, instead of small projects that left many gaps and led to corruption.

In 2016, he conceived the DBOT project, costing 01,049 crore, to harness 48MLD from the Tungabhadra to give drinking water to 212 villages and another to tap into the Malaprabha river (26MLD) to quench 131 villages. There was also a second drinking water project for Gadag city (costing 0128 crore) and the Singatalur lift irrigation project to harness 18.5tmc of water to irrigate two lakh acres in the district.

It is at Hammigi village, some 70km from Gadag city, that the story begins. Water from the Tungabhadra is harnessed from Singatalur barrage into an intake well, and pumped into a water treatment plant at Jalawadagi village, which is 9km away. The water is treated to make it potable and pumped through booster stations, lifting stations, master balancing reservoirs and finally to interconnected overhead tanks at the village level. The water quality is digitally monitored at the control room at the water treatment plant, to which all beneficiary villages are directly connected.

“One needs focus and professional companies to partner with,” says Patil. “Land acquisition was an issue as both private and forest land had to be acquired. We faced litigation. But completed the project in record time.”

Gadag is one of the few districts to have arrested migration by implementing the MGNREGA. “We started community work across all 122 panchayats,” says Chavan. “Our focus is natural resource management—soil and water conservation. We are carrying out ‘reach to valley’ schemes in 30 panchayats and identifying other panchayats for soil conservation, recharge wells and multi-arch check dams. Our target was 6.6 lakh person days (till June), but we have crossed 10 lakh. NREGA ensures work for a minimum of 100 days a year (150 days in drought-declared areas). The workers earn 0249 daily, which has stopped migration.”

TAGS