Umesh Marpalli
Daijiwrold Media Network – Udupi (SM)

Udupi, Mar 18: The residents of Hirebettu village, Patla Nava Gram, Vishweshwara Nagara, Kanchina Bailu and Sadhashiva Nagara together staged a protest in front of Atradi gram panchayat here on Monday March 18.

“Under the Taluk Development Scheme, Rs 2 lac was sanctioned for these villages. Villagers here were suffering from past ten years. MLA Lalaji Mendon has failed to provide required facilities to us,” said Sudheer Hegde, one of the protestors.

As many as 102 families were depending on the government water facility. Most of them now depend on the private wells. There are two borewells and two wells by the government which failed to provide sufficient amount of water to the villagers.

There are plenty of pipelines but no water sources, say the villagers. The villagers, especially farmers, are under huge threat. Now they get water for 3 hours from a lake which will dry up soon within a month.

The villagers are supposed to pay Rs 60 per month even though they are not getting water, said one of the villagers Yashoda.

We should get water at the earliest or else we will stop paying tax and will intensify our protest, she said.

Vasanth Salian, former MLC, Amruth Shenoy, Congress youth wing president, Sudhakar Kaup, Laxminarayan Prabhu, Padubettu gram former panchayat, Suresh Nayak, former president Hirebettu and others were present.

A memorandum was submitted to Pushpa, Athradi panchayat president. Upendra Nayak, ZP president received the memo and assured that the work is in progress and within a week the problems will be solved.