Karnataka   

2007 brought more misery to people of Gadag district

PAINFUL MEMORIES: A file picture of the flood-affected villages in Gadag district in September.

GADAG: During the year that just concluded, Gadag district was in the news on several occasions more for wrong reasons.

While drought affected the farmers of the district in the early months of the year, it was heavy rain and floods at Benni Halla combined with backwaters of Malaprabha in the later half of the year that brought misery to farmers. The relief and rehabilitation work by the district administration at a snail’s pace added to the woes of the displaced people.

Although people of the district were happy initially because of the bountiful rain after the monsoon set in, their happiness soon faded away, when rain god failed to show up at times when the crops required it most.

After that came untimely heavy rain damaging the yield and floods in Tungabhadra in August damaged standing crop in about 4,000 acres of farmland.

Then came the worst calamity in September in the form of floods at Benni Halla displacing hundreds of people in 30 villages of Ron and Nargund taluks of the district.

Having lost everything, hundreds of displaced people were living in tin sheds without doors, sharing the same with other families.

Their plight had not changed much even after the visits of members of State Human Rights Commission and one of the advisers to the Governor. They were hoping against hope that the new year would bring them some relief.

Prior to the drought, the district caught the attention when the headmistress of a government school in Venkatapur village in Mundaragi taluk, committed suicide by setting herself on fire, “fed up” by the harassment by a member of the School Development and Monitoring Committee.

The incident led to a debate on the functioning of SDMCs with the then Primary and Secondary Education Minister Basavaraj Horatti mooting the issue of revising the guidelines and reducing the “powers” of these committees. The district witnessed another similar case at the fag end of the year in Mundaragi taluk again. Another headmistress of private aided school attempted suicide, alleging harassment. While she survived, the police are yet to take action against the accused.

The Binkadakatti zoo near Gadag was again in the news this year, when a pack of hounds entered an enclosure of blackbucks and killed 13 of them, bringing to the fore the issue of lack of security and development works at the zoo.

In 2006, a leopard had escaped from the zoo premises, only to be killed after a month. Another incident which caught the attention was the death of 13 peafowls at Balehosur village in Shirahatti taluk, after eating poisonous seeds.

During the year, the residents of Gadag did have something to cheer about. Puttaraj Gawai, the visually impaired musician who has converted thousands of visually impaired persons into musicians, was conferred “Kalidas Samman” by Madhya Pradesh Government.

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