CRI implemented a unique project for the farming community at Karehalli village in the Shimoga district of Karnataka. Please find below a brief report on the same.
About Karehalli village:
This is a small village located in the Soraba Tehsil of Shimoga district in Karnataka. It is situated 7Kms away from the Sub-district headquarter of Sorabha and 27km away from district headquarter of Shimoga. This is a gram Panchayat having a population of around 2300 people. The total geographical area of the village is 405 hectares. This is an agricultural based village and most of them are farmers . Paddy is the principal crop extensively cultivated and the other Crops are Sugarcane, Banana, Coconut etc.
Poor onset of monsoon lead to crop failures:
Due to poor onset of monsoon & rain, for the last 2 years there had been continuous crop failures and farmers of this village were in pathetic condition and were finding it hard to pull on with their day to day life . Even the big pond in the village, which was a good water source at one stage became dry..
CSR initiative :
To address this crisis situation, in order to improve ground water level and to meet day to day utility requirement of villagers, the Gram Sabha decided to pump water from the nearby River Varada and store it in the lake amidst the village. It needed funds and with some local donors like Dr.Viswanath Nadiger & Mr.Ramdas Kamat, they were able to mobilize some funds and still they were short of funds.. at this time through Mr.C.H.Nadiger, Regional Director – EEPC, Govt of India, who is a native of this village, approached our management through our exports team to provide them necessary Pump set and pipe lines through our CSR arm.
Shri.G.Soundararajan, our Vice Chairman, ascertaining the crisis situation of the poor farmers immediately approved this community development project under CSR grant. Our Hubli team then, sprung in to action, they installed our High capacity submersible pump sets to pump water from Varada river and also laid our RPVC pipelines to bring water to the lake in the village. It was a challenging task for our team as the pipelines for a distance of approx 2.5 kms was a sloppy road with ups and down…with sheer expertise and competence, we were able to complete this project at the shortest possible time .
Through this initiative, daily 3 lakh litres of water is pumped from the “Varada” river and supplied to the lake in the village…based on the need of farmers the water is sent to the farm land through existing pipelines in the lake and the whole distribution of water among farmers is monitored by a committee of members appointed by the villagers & the Gram Panchayat.
Dedication of the project to the Village:
This community project was dedicated to the villagers on 24th December 2017 at a function organized by the villagers at Karehalli… Mr.Nagesh Joshi, our Branch Manager – Hubli & Mr.S.Raja, from our CSR team attended the dedication programme . This event was attended by elected members of the Panchayat, Govt officials and a large gathering of villagers of Karehalli and nearby villages.
Mr.C.H.Nadiger, Regional Director – Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), Govt of India, thanked our Vice Chairman and the C.R.I management for supporting this community project which will benefit thousands of farmers in the village to bring back their livelihood. He also requested us to consider providing regular maintenance of this project to make it sustainable in the long run.
Dr.Abdul Rawuf, one of the famous & leading Agriculturist in the state of Karnataka, during his address lauded the efforts taken by our management in this project and told that he was amazed by the water discharge from our pumps and also the technical expertise through which we had laid down the 2.5km pipe line to bring water to the lake from river..
Dr.Mahanth Swamiji, of Samasthan Matt, Jade, blessed our team and during his address, he appreciated the joint effort of the villagers, individual donors and corporate like us which has made way to a novel project which will benefit thousands of farmers in the coming years..
