Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Services and Sports, has directed officers of Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) and Panchayat Development Officers (PDOs) to give priority to supplying water by tankers to water scarce areas in Udupi city and all gram panchayats in Udupi Assembly constituency respectively.
Mr. Madhwaraj said the PDOs should clear the bills of contractors supplying water through water tankers within a week.
Though the rains were lesser this time, the complaints about water scarcity were lower compared to last year, he said.
K. Raghavendra, CMC environment engineer, said water was being supplied in the city through around 50 tankers daily.
He said there were 911 poor people living in rented houses in the Udupi Assembly constituency.
Of these, 595 were from Udupi city.
They would be provided with sites soon so that they can build houses.
These sites would be provided in the city and in surrounding villages.
2.7 lakh each to construct their houses, while those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would get Rs.
Already 50 acres of land had been identified in rural areas, while 14 acres of land had been identified in the city to be given as sites to the poor.

Many residents of newly-developed sectors have been left at the mercy of tankers mafia.
According to Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) minister, Islamabad on average needs 70 mgd (Million gallons per day) while a water shortage of 17 MGD is observed most of the time around the year.
The lag between supply and demand is filled mostly by the government and private water tankers.
Also out of around 200 tube wells located in different sectors of capital around one-third remain dysfunctional and await necessary repairs.
During the tenure of former CDA Chairman Kamran Lashari, more than a decade ago a mega project to bring water from Indus River via Tarbela Dam was approved that once completed would have sorted out water woes of twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
However, the project was shelved then and plans are afoot to revive it.
‘It has become an annual ritual that we perform every year during these months.
I’ve been living in G-13 for the last 6 years, we tried water boring but to no avail, the water level is very low.
It is pertinent to mention here that scarcity of water is nothing new for citizens of Islamabad as they have grown accustomed to it during recent years while civic authorities have utterly failed to address the issue.
Hussain said that water tankers of CDA are working 24/7 to supply water at highly subsidized costs to residents of Islamabad.

Aurangabad: The city’s water supply system appears to have become quite unpredictable as the main pipeline has once again developed a leakage — sixth in the last 20 days — near the railway station on Monday.
Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) sectional engineer Kiran Dhande said "We had to empty the entire supply line to wield the broken part which consumed significant time.
The long gap in water-lifting will definitely cause severe water scarcity."
He said that similar leakages may appear anywhere between Jayakawadi and the city as the supply lines on entire stretch have become fragile.
Another officer in the municipal body, requesting anonymity, said, there would be frequent disruption in water supply in coming days.
"Ideally the municipal body should discard the pipes as it has become quite expensive to maintain it.
There is only one option to prevent it and that is laying new pipeline," the officer added.
Meanwhile, the 30-hour shutdown threw water supply in the city out of gear on Tuesday with taps in many localities running dry for six days in a row.
Most of the residents in the city are receiving tap water once in three days and those who missed their turn on Monday and Tuesday are the worst affected.
It is difficult to survive without tap water especially during summer," Prakash Deshmukh, a resident of Garkheda.

While the authorities in Chandigarh have been making tall claims of making 24X7 water supply from this year, the ground reality is that the city residents will have to grapple with a huge shortfall of water supply.
Even as the administrations of the three cities have taken steps such as banning watering of lawns and washing of vehicles using running water, this is unlikely to be of much help.
Officials in the municipal corporation reveal that at present, Chandigarh is short of 29 million gallons daily (MGD).
The city receives 87 MGD water against a demand of 116 MGD, a shortage of 29 MGD.
“The work on the phases 5 and 6 of the Kajauli waterworks is in progress and we are hopeful that the city will get extra 35 MGD water by the next summer and residents will be getting 24X7 water supply,” said Chandigarh MC commissioner B Purushartha.
The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), that looks after water supply in Panchkula, is currently supplying 22-24 MGD water to city.
But as the summer approaches, the consumption will increase to 28-30 MGD in peak summer.
Even if water supply from the Kaushalya dam gets exhausted, we have enough tubewells installed in the city to take care of the rising water demand during summer.
The increase in demand and failure to increase the supply proportionately are the main reasons behind water scarcity.
In SAS Nagar, many sectors are yet to get canal water and most of the water supply is met by tubewells.

REDDING, Calif. – Farmers under the Bella Vista Water District were relieved to find out they would be receiving 100 percent of water allocations, but are still paying off costs from drought years.
Robert Nash of Nash Ranch in Redding said their main crops are hay, grains, and pumpkins.
"The pumpkins need a lot of water, and if we have alfalfa hay, that takes a lot of water," Nash said.
The irrigation for his crops come from the Bella Vista Water District and a pond on his ranch.
"We store rainwater, rain run-off there, it’s by permit, and there’s about 400 acre feet there that we can store and use, as well," Nash said.
Nash added that in 2015 Bella Vista Water District was not granted any water for farms, forcing him to cut back on irrigation.
Although it has been a wet winter, there is still a long road ahead to recovery for farmers.
"Irrigation is expensive, and we’ve had a couple years of drought.
So we’ve gotten used to not irrigating, and so, it’ll take a couple years to get things ramped back up into an irrigated crop rotation," Nash said.
However, he’s optimistic about the upcoming year and will be planting 20 percent more crops than previous years.

Governor declares drought over but permanent conservation rules to come.
After one of the wettest winters on record, Gov.
The governor’s executive order maintains the drought emergency for sites still desperate for deliveries of drinking water, including Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Tuolumne counties.
This long-term framework for water conservation includes everything from minimizing pipe leaks, to requiring water suppliers to develop drought contingency plans, to submitting monthly data, to meeting permanent conservation targets.
“This drought emergency is over, but the next drought could be around the corner,” Brown said in a statement.
“It’s a wake-up call that we can’t hit the snooze button on.” The governor’s new order directs the state water board to lift conservation targets on water use for California’s 400 urban water agencies so those suppliers no longer have to show they have enough inventory to last through three straight years of drought.
However, urban suppliers will have to continue reporting water-use data as the state rolls out permanent and the customized water budgets, which will likely include separate indoor and outdoor targets.
“We are reviewing the governor’s long-term water-use framework released today,” said Mark Muir, board chair of the San Diego County Water Authority.
Since the governor declared the drought emergency in June 2015, residents and businesses have saved a total of more than 846 billion gallons of water.
Daily per capita use is now down to 133 gallons.

Water supply woes in Bhubaneswar.
Bhubaneswar: Many areas in the capital city are yet to get pipelines, specially in slums.
As per Public Health Department, the city needs around 70 million litres per day which is fulfilled with water from Mahanadi, Kuakhai, Daya rivers and borewells.
But at least 90 million litres of water is wasted every day which has created imbalance in water supply.
The water treatment plant at Palasuni that treats Kuakhai river provides 108 million litres water despite its capacity of 90 million litres.
But Daya and Kuakhai are drying in summer and more so because of the daily water supply to Bhubaneswar.
Now, the city depends on Puri canal for water supply.
To avoid water woes, there is a planning to built a checkdam in Kuakhai which is not going ahead because of financial constraints as well as lack of co-ordination between various departments.
At present, a sand bag embankment has been made to collect water.
But this cannot be a long term solution.

La Crosse County warns of nitrates in town of Onalaska, Holland well water.
Private well owners in the western half of the towns of Onalaska and Holland are being urged to test their water after the La Crosse County Health Department discovered worrisome levels of nitrates and bacteria in much of the water supply.
Water contamination data was requested in response to a 2016 audit showing multiple failings by the Wisconsin DNR to enforce the clean water laws.
Water typically registers 1 mcg per ml, and anything more than 10 mcg per ml can cause health problems, especially for infants and pregnant women.
Risks include birth defects and “blue baby syndrome.” Private well water also tested positive for coliform, which in itself may not cause illness but can indicate the presence of E. coli, which may cause gastrointestinal problems including diarrhea and vomiting.
Health and Human Services Committee Chair Monica Kruse stated that an exact cause of the contamination has not been determined, but contributing factors include sandy soil, run-off and general land use.
“It can take years and decades for this to occur and show up, and it can take years and decades for the levels to go back down,” Rombalski stressed.
Kits are available at the La Crosse County Health Department, with results available by mail in two to four business days.
Those with elevated nitrate levels are advised to use bottled water for drinking and cooking and to consider having reverse osmosis systems installed or have a deeper or new well drilled.
Bacteria can be killed by boiling water before consumption, but is not recommended when nitrates are also present, as boiling can concentrate nitrates.

Legislators want an expanded coal ash study.
State Rep. Dana Bumgardner and state Sen. Kathy Harrington, both Republicans from Gastonia, introduced the bill late Tuesday requiring further study of an unnamed neighborhood — apparently in or near their legislative districts — to see whether drinking-water wells beyond a previous half-mile study limit have been affected by hexavalent chromium, a chemical that can cause cancer.
Changes made last year to North Carolina’s coal ash law require Duke Energy to provide either of those options at no cost to residents served by wells and who live within a half-mile of a company coal ash basin.
Neither Bumgardner nor Harrington was available to comment Wednesday.
Bumgardner’s receptionist said he would be out through today because of a death in his family.
The neighborhood the bill refers to apparently is located near the coal-fired Allen Steam Station that Duke Energy operates on the outskirts of the suburban Gaston County community of Belmont.
“A large body of science and research demonstrates that ash basins are not impacting these residents,” Sheehan said generally of people living on well water near the utility’s ash basins.
Evidence is strong that hexavalent chromium acts as a carcinogen when it is airborne and humans inhale it.
Sheehan said that even though Duke Energy believes its coal ash ponds did not pollute drinking water wells near its 31 coal ash ponds statewide, the utility agreed to provide new water supplies to nearby residents in a compromise that enables the power company to cap some of its ponds in place — as opposed to excavating them and burying the material in a landfill.
Coal ash zoomed to statewide prominence three years ago when a large spill occurred from an ash basin at the retired Dan River Steam Station near Eden.

– Several Bhubaneswar homes lack water supply Bhubaneswar, April 4: Residents here continue to suffer from water scarcity because of the dillydallying approach of the state government.
At a question-answer session during the ongoing Assembly session, housing and urban development minister Pushpendra Singh Deo admitted that the city did not get adequate water for its daily requirements.
In his reply to a question by legislator Chiranjib Biswal, the minister admitted that only 33 of the city’s 67 wards were fully covered with piped water supply till March 2016.
"At present, 24 wards of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) have complete piped water supply, whereas the other 43 wards are partially covered," Singh Deo had said in the Assembly.
The minister, however, assured the Assembly that several projects had been taken up under Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation (Amrut) and the entire city would be covered with piped water by 2021-22.
61, where only 10 per cent of the households get piped water supplied by the Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo).
There are very few households with piped water supply in our area.
The Pheo calculated that half of the available water went down the drain due to leakages while the rest half supplied to the households which have piped water connection and stand posts.
It has been planned that 13 of these 38 projects will be completed by the end of this year.
"We have already initiated the water supply projects under Amrut.