Talapady Kudru, life unstable for residents

Mangalore Today News Network

Dec 05, 2016: Reports spell out that at least 145 families in Kudru (a river-island) constantly live in a state of uncertainty to get themselves insulated from floods during the monsoon and from scarcity of water during summer.


If there had not been the Mangaluru-Kannur railway line, there would not have been this Talapady Kudru, off Mangaluru, which is surrounded by rivulets on the other three sides. The floods they dread are the result of the rivulets refusing to follow the law of nature to join the Arabian Sea.

Two live rivulets — Talapady and Uchchila and another, said to be alive once, Kunjathur — get stagnated between Kanva Tirtha on the Kerala border and Batpady on the Karnataka border forming a large pool of backwaters. Between these backwaters and the railway track lies the Talapady Kudru, with Talapady rivulet forming the boundary line between Karnataka and Kerala.


People are busy dumping sand excavated from the rivulets to strengthen the bases of coconut trees. It is an annual exercise to prevent uprooting of coconut trees,  whatever sand gathered on the bases gets washed away during the monsoons. A majority of the residents of Kudru make a living with their coconut gardens as well as doing sundry jobs in Talapady and Mangaluru, he says.

“We have been living here for many years,” says Mohammed, another resident. He works as a centring worker in construction activities in Mangaluru. The children go to the “Patna School,” a government school in Talapady for primary education and to Mangaluru for higher education. There is no road connectivity to Kudru and people have to cross the track by foot during the monsoons when the rivulets are in spate.

During off-monsoon season, small vehicles could be brought to Kudru from under the railway bridge adjacent to the rivulet, he says and adds that it becomes difficult for the aged and the sick to move out.

When asked would not the residents prefer a permanent way for the rivulets to join the sea, Mohammed wants status quo to continue. If that is done, seawater would make the groundwater, the only source of drinking water in the region, saline.

Whenever there is flood, the gram panchayat opens the sand dunes facilitating rivulets to join the sea, he added.