The Karnataka government has renamed the water supply project, earlier known as Yettinahole project, as Yettinahole Integrated Drinking Water Scheme, with a view to getting financial assistance from the Central government and external funding agencies.
The state government intends to raise about Rs 7,800 crore for the project from various sources including the Centre and external agencies like Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The project, worth Rs 10,000 crore, aims to improve the supply of water to the parched districts of Chikkaballapur, Kolar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore Urban, Ramanagar and Tumkur.
The foundation stone for the project has already been laid and work is expected to commence in about two weeks.
The Karnataka government is looking to fill up the lakes in the above mentioned districts for drinking water purposes. For this project, about 24 TMC (thousand million cu ft) of water will be drawn from Yettinahole, a tributary of river Nethravathy.
However, work on the project has not yet commenced and it has started facing a lot of opposition from locals of Dakshina Kannada district, who are citing the reason that the river will dry up if this water project is implemented.
On the other hand, the government has sought the opinion of Urban Development and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj departments on modifying the project’s feasibility report. However, the National Institute of Hydrology has confirmed that the project will yield 23.76 TMC once it is implemented.