The TOI in a story mentions -The Markandeya river, which has been reduced to small rivulet over the years, is set to get a fresh lease of life. It will be rejuvenated at a cost of Rs 24 crore under MNREGA. The zilla panchayat’s engineering department, nine gram panchayats on the banks of the river and 23 major beneficiary villages are working on the Markandeya River rejuvenation project.
Markandeya river originates in Bailur village of Khanapur taluk, enters Belagavi taluk on southern side and flows towards western side of the Belagavi cit and is a subsidiary stream of Ghataprabha river.
Currently the river bed is filled with silt and bushes have grown along the banks. Besides, hundreds of farmers have constructed wells within the riparian bed to irrigate their standing crops during summer.
The silt formation has resulted in reduction of water storage capacity. Around two decades ago, the 70-km long river would flow throughout the year, but now it has turned into a rivulet. At Kangrali, the river is around 30 feet wide and just around 8 feet deep.
The rejuvenation had already started from Rakasakopp reservoir, from where the River gets excess spill. The 24-km long stretch passing through Belagundi, Bijagarni, Sulaga and Uchagaon will be de-silted.
Much needed work…
Even Rakaskop reservoir should be rejuvenated. As most of it is dry now, it should be dug up and it’s holding capacity should be increased. Hope someone takes notice of this.
Good move. As said above even Rakaskop should be rejuvenated. We can increase the depth of Fort lake too, so that it will increase underground water level inside the city.