Summary:
They have remained adamant and have not even touched the lake water. We took nearly 10 days to completely empty the lake,” said Patil.Basavaraj Melavanki, GP water man of Morab said, “Villagers are still fetching water from Malaprabha right canal by trekking 1-2 km daily. Villagers stopped drinking water from the lake from that day itself, fearing that the water was contaminated.Morab gram panchayat member Laxman Patil told TOI that the lake was the only source of drinking water, villagers had refused to drink the water and had demanded authorities to drain the lake and fill it with fresh water.The authorities buckled under pressure and started draining the lake last week. Now, water is flowing into the lake from the Malaprabha right canal and it will take about 5-6 days to refill it,” added Melavanki.Navalgund tahsildar Naveen Hullur said, “When all our efforts to convince the villagers about using the lake water went in vain, we extended our full support to the villagers to drain the lake. “We deployed four motors and 20 six-inch pipes to pump out water from the lake on November 30..