Flood Relief – Visit to Villages in Gokak taluq, 14th August 2019,

Parts of Belagavi district, sugar belt of north Karnataka, were devastated by heavy rains (cloud burst) and unprecedented floods during July/August 2019. It’s our bounded duty, as most of us come from North Karnataka, to rush to the help of affected people and cattle. We appealed to members and friends for contributions. Within 4 days of time we could able to mobilize around 4 lakhs!!

Observing the TV, Newspaper reports and Ground reports we thought of visiting the severely affected areas of Belagavi district. But approach roads were either washed away by gushing floods or they were water clogged!! We purchased 500 tarpaulins, 1000 printed light weight blankets and transported them to our well-wisher Mr and Mrs. Rekha Mallikarjun Kori’s house in Hubballi. Sarees and Towels of 500 each were procured from Gadag and sent to the same place. Trust president Mr.Gangadhar Wali, life members Mr. Lingaraj Managuli, Mr. Dheerendra Bilagi, Mr. Praveen Hebbalkar and Mr. Mahantesh Veerapur started their journey on a hired zoom car on the wee hours on 13.08.2019. Kori couple were waiting to receive the team and arranged delicious lunch. With properly packing all the material, team was all set to visit the affected areas for distribution. Life member Mr. Mallikarjun Hosamani and our college friend Mr. Ravindra Shirolkar joined the relief material distributing team. Thanks to Mr. Prakash Turmari and Mr. Shashidhar who has offered goods vehicle free of cost to transport the material. All was set but there is no road connectivity between Dharwad and Saundatti, as the bridge near Inam Hongal was washed away in the floods of Benni Halla!! Taking a roundabout journey, the team was able to reach Gokak that night. Unfortunately, relief materials were getting looted in some villages en route!! So, team decided to take the police protection. Thanks to CPI of Saundatti Mr.Muttanna Savargol who deputed two police constables along with us throughout our distribution activities. A big thanks to him and Karnataka police. Thanks to Mr.Chinnappa V.Hatti, Narasimha Kulkarni, Basavaraj Beeranatti, Yallappa Duradundi and others who helped us in identifying the affected areas and the people. Thanks to Mr. Magdum-Preseident Rotary club Gokak, who made all the arrangements for our lodging and boarding in Gokak. He was kind enough to accompany us to all the affected areas.

The devastation was beyond anybody’s imagination. People were in dire need of food, good drinking water, cattle feed, shelter etc. These kinds of flood were never seen in their life time!!

Roads were devastated, houses were submerged in water for many days, cattle were swayed away or dead, crops were in deep water!! Nature’s fury was at its peak!! Road bridge near Munavalli was flooded like anything and we could see water marks on the banks up to 12 feet high!!

It was quite unfortunate to meet socio economically well to do families of these villages as they were waiting for relief materials distributed by NGOs like us!! Few days back these people were feeding others and today on account of natural disaster, they have become bankrupt!! They were literally on the roads with no shelter, food and proper clothing’s. Most of them lost their crop, cattle, house, house hold materials, vehicles or whatever they earned so far in their life!!

It was a tough situation for us to manage the crowd but thanks to the police and the yuva brigade organizers who made our distribution activities easier than expected.

True to UKSL spirit “Giving is not about just donating… It is about making a Difference” we executed the task. We felt satisfied by distributing the materials to the needy ones in whatever small way we could do.

We visited badly affected villages of Gokak Taluq Adibatti, Melavanki, Konnur, Chigadolli and Kalarkoppa.

We were the first organization to enter these villages as these villages got the approach to the outside world just a day’s back!! Otherwise they were cut off to outside world for almost a week!

Thanks to our friend Mr.Subhas Singh Jamadar who coordinated and planned our distribution program and supporting even during execution. Without which we wouldn’t have executed so smoothly.

Thanks to driver Mr. Anand who helped us in material distribution. Thanks to all the donors for your generosity. Our sincere congratulations. Without your whole hearted support, we wouldn’t have executed this herculean task.

With successfully completing the first phase of distribution of relief materials we returned to Bengaluru on early morning of 15th August. Though it was quite a hectic journey but was worth spending our time and energy in helping our people.

Another team along with Mr. Amit Patil of Belagavi visited remote villages like Ugar khurd (Athani taluq) by train and distributed cattle feed and medicines to the farmers of affected areas 0n 11th August 2019. Farmers of that areas thanked UKSL from bottom of their heart.

Key take ways from the event:

We at UKSL trust give utmost importance to transparency of financials especially to the funds collected from all. We have distributed materials purchased from the generous contributions from you all. Your support will give us confidence to take up such tasks in helping the fellow Indians who are in dire need of help.

UKSL Trust, Bengaluru thanks all the donors and members who helped directly or indirectly for organizing this event and making it a great success. We also thank RSS, ABVP, Yuva brigade, Bajrang Dal office bearers of Hubballi, Gokak for their whole-hearted support in organizing this event.

In the second and third round of material distribution we are planning to distribute materials collected by friends and different organisations and items like school bags kits purchased in bulk (with notebooks, compass box, pen and pencils) very soon.

The next steps: Trustees and life members would like to take up such society give back initiatives through crowd funding.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give “

– Winston Churchill

Content Created by: Mr. Gangadhar Wali and Lingaraj Managuli.

Full report can be downloaded here – UKSL-Visit to Belagavi_V1.0