DC directs KSPCB to prevent flow of sewage into Nandini river near Chelairu within a week

Dakshina Kannada DC directs KSPCB to prevent sewage flow into River Nandini, sparking concerns over pollution.

Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner M.P. Mullai Muhilan on Saturday, March 1, directed the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) to take all possible steps to prevent flow of untreated sewage into River Nandini near Chelairu, off Kochi-Panvel National Highway 66.

He was responding to the river pollution issue raised by Moodbidri MLA Umanath Kotian at the district development coordination and mointoring committee meeting chaired by Dakshina Kannada Member of Parliament Captain Brijesh Chowta here.

Mr. Kotian said the stretch of Nandini backwater was famous for the Khandevu festival, a socio-religious fishing festival associated with the Khandevu Nemotsava of the nearby Dharmasaru Kshetra. Every year, hundreds of people, cutting across caste barriers, engage in fishing on a particular day in the month of May during the Daivasthana festival.

This practice has stopped for the last couple of years as the nearby medical college and hospital at Mukka was letting its untreated sewage through a canal to the river. Also, sewage from the Chalairu sewage treatment plant of Mangaluru City Corporation was flowing into the river making matters worse, he said.

When a KSPCB official said the board had issued a show cause notice to MCC and could issue one to the medical college, Mr. Kotian erupted saying if the Pollution Control Board was really functional, the river water would not have turned blackish. “I have been the MLA for the last seven years and raising the issue since then without there being any reprieve. If the district administration does not act even now, people who have lost their patience, might act,” the MLA cautioned.

MCC Commissioner Ravichandra Naik and Superintending Engineer Naresh Shenoy maintained that the corporation was letting out secondary treated sewage into the river and it does not cause pollution.