The Karnataka State Western Ghats Chairman Ravi Kushalappa visited Hunsur on Thursday and apprised himself of the pollution in Lakshmanteertha river that flows through the town.
The tributary of the Cauvery is highly polluted, carrying untreated sewage from various towns along its course, and efforts to clean the river has not yielded the desired results so far.
Mr. Ravi Kushalappa met the local MLA H.P.Manjunath, Deputy Commissioner Bagadi Goutham, ZP CEO Yogesh, Deputy Conservator of Forests Mahesh Kumar and other officials and held extensive interaction on reviving the quality of the river.
Citizens of Hunsur including NGOs and environmentalists who met Mr. Kushalappa also gave their feedback and the latter promised to incorporate the suggestions while drafting an action plan to clean up the river.
The activists suggested that release of untreated effluents including sewage into the river should be stopped and measures should be initiated to treat the effluents and sewage and diverted for secondary use in agriculture.
There are small rivulets that join the river to augment the volume of water but some of them have been encroached and the flow has been blocked, said the activists. Hence efforts should be made to clear the encroachment to facilitate inflow of water.
S. Sreekanth, founder of Development through Education (DEED), an NGO working for tribal rehabilitation and empowerment, said it was imperative to take up massive afforestation along both the banks of the river and declare them as an eco-sensitive zone to improve the local environment.
There was also a suggestion to divert Konganahole rivulet to Lakshmanteertha to augment the river flow. Activists also called for a crackdown on sand mining along the course of the river and said that the action plan to rejuvenate the river should be implemented in a time-bound manner.
