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Mixed response to bandh called
for Kalasa-Bhandura project
Bandh total along Malaprabha river basin
THE GOAN NETWORK
BELAGAVI
A bandh by various farmer organisations to mark the anniversary of their agitation to push for the controversial Kalasa-Bhandura water diversion project evoked mixed response in north Karnataka.
While the response to the bandh was high in Gadag and Dharwad districts, Bagalkot and Belagavi districts received mixed response. The villages and towns along the Malaprabha river basin responded overwhelmingly to the bandh.
Barring stray incidents of stone pelting according to police reports, the bandh concluded peacefully, however as preventive and precautionary measures, the North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation suspended bus services that affected the inter-city, inter district and also inter-state bus services in the region.
While majority of government offices functioned normally barring in Belagavi and Bagalkot, several educational institutions in north Karnataka region had declared a holiday.
The bandh did not evoke much response in Belagavi and Khanapur. Farmers who had gathered in the city in comparatively smaller number had blocked the road at Chenamma Circle for about an hour, disrupting traffic in the city.
In Dharwad district and parts of Hubballi, farmers came on to the streets early in the morning staging demonstrations, raising slogans against successive governments and burning old tyres at important junctions to register their protest.
Farmers had also blocked the National Highway 218 between Hubballi and Vijayapura, till evening as the epicentre of the farmers’ agitation Naragund in Gadag district and its neighbouring taluka Navalgund where indefinite agitation has continued. The Hubballi-Solapur NH 50 too was blocked near Hunagund in Bagalkot district with the farmers staging a road block for around five hours.
Meanwhile, majority of the schools and colleges in Dharwad taluka remained closed while in Belagavi, school children were left early and as the news about disruption of bus services spread in the region, the school administrations were forced to declare a holiday.
In Gadag and Dharwad district and Badami and Hunagund talukas of Bagalkot districts shops remained closed while protest rallies were held in different parts of north Karnataka region.
