Daijiworld Media Network - Beltangady (SP)

Beltangady, Mar 15: Hundreds of ponds are disappearing in the recent past due to encroachments and construction activity. Guruvayanakere, the only biggest and historic pond of Beltangady taluk, witnessed death of thousands of fishes on Monday March 14 after effluents got mixed with the pond water.

Guruvayanakere pond which is located in Kuvettu gram panchayat is spread over 14.761 acres of land. It is home to hundreds of varieties of fishes. On Monday, the locals saw that strangely many fishes had died. They informed the gram panchayat. The pond has fishes weighing between 50 grams and five kg.

The locals had seen that the appearance of the pond water had changed in colour during the last couple of weeks. It is not clear how the death of fishes was caused, and whether effluents got into the pond or someone purposely poisoned the water.

Tahsildar of the taluk, Mahesh J, taluk panchayat executive officer Kusumadhar etc visited the spot. Sample of the pond water was sent to a laboratory in Mangaluru for testing. The tahsildar said that the locals have been warned against consuming fish from the pond and that once the test report is received, further action will be taken. Gram panchayat president Ashalata, vice president Pradeep S Shetty, panchayat development officer Geeta Salian, were present.

It is said that a private concern functioning near this pond has been directly releasing its effluents into this pond. The colour of water inside a pond located by the side of the concern has turned blue.

Ashok Goveas and Subhash, who said that they had taken the fish catching rights in the pond through an auction, had released one lac fingerlings into the pond. Because of the pandemic, they had not caught the fish for two years and they had planned to collect the fish in April and May. The death of fishes has caused huge loss for them, they stated.