MANGALORE, Jun 19 (The Hindu): The council of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat (ZP) in its special general body meeting on Thursday resolved to authorise a private agency for conducting a survey and preparing a detailed project report on the feasibility of supplying water from the Netravati to 12 villages around Ullal. In-charge president of the ZP Venkat Dambekodi presided over the meeting.

Chief Executive Officer of the panchayat P. Shivashankar told the House that these 12 villages were under the jurisdiction of nine gram panchayats. The Mangalore City Corporation was positive in its response to sharing the Netravati water from Thumbay vented dam as the Government had laid an additional main water supply line from there to the city. Now, the panchayat had decided on ways of supplying water to these villages, mode of distribution, funding the project and so on, he said.

Shivashankar said that as per a decision taken at a meeting of various officials of the district administration, the city corporation, and the elected representatives some time ago, the Netravati water could be “officially” supplied to Pudu and Adyar villages on the outskirts of the city, even as the residents of these villages were already drawing water from the corporation’s pipeline without its permission. A few members of the House sought to know the volume of land that was expected to go under water after the new seven-metre-high vented dam dam was completed at Thumbay. F. Ummar Farooq, Tungappa Bangera, Abdul Azeez Malar, and Chandrashekar Kamat took objection to a communication from the Deputy Commissioner’s office to the panchayat stating that it did not have any information about this subject. Shivashankar said that the reply was two months old and hence he would seek a fresh response in this regard. The city corporation would also be approached in this regard, he said. The House resolved to seek Rs. 1.56 crore from the Government for constructing government school buildings.