Irate women gherao Siddaramaiah

Hubballi: If CM Siddaramaiah needed any confirmation about the people’s suffering in the drought, he got it on Tuesday with angry women laying siege to his car in protest over officials refusing to give them tanker water for hours as they waited to welcome him to their Bandiwad village.

Drinking water is supplied through tankers to around 17 villages  in Dharwad district and a tanker usually makes three or four trips every day to Bandiwad village to give its people their supply. The women in the village had queued up with their pots and buckets since 6 am for the tanker water as their only borewell has dried up. But to their anger, the officials refused to give them the tanker water saying  the CM was expected any time. But when the waiting stretched to four hours, the weary women waylaid  Mr Siddaramaiah’s car in protest. "We hardly getting two pots of drinking water every day. Our pleas for more water have gone unheard and now the Chief Minister's visit turned into a curse  for us as we had to wait for hours to get water from the tanker,”  said a village woman, Kamalavva. Mr Siddaramaiah  later directed officials to supply adequate water to the villagers and warned them of action if they did not do as told. But this was not all.

The CM  was met  with complaints of water and fodder shortage everywhere he went in Dharwad, Hubballi and Kundagol taluks. Angry  farmers raised slogans against the state government,  demanding early implementation of Kalasa Banduri project during his meeting with officials on drought relief work.

More funds needed: CM
At Amminabavi village, Mr  Siddaramaiah  said the Centre needed to release more funds to the state for drought relief work.  It had given only Rs 1,450 crore as against the demand for Rs 3,600 crore , he said, putting the crop loss at Rs 60,000 crore.