Bentodi (Shivamogga)
The recent death of a 20-year-old after a fibre coracle capsized in the backwaters of Chakra dam near Kattinahole village in Sampekatte (Hosur) gram panchayat, Hosanagara taluk of Shivamogga district in Karnataka, highlights the difficulties that residents of Bentodi village, surrounded by backwaters, face.
On September 13, Poornesh, a resident of Kattinahole, was among three persons who were on the way to Bentoti by crossing the backwaters propelling a coracle. At one point, they lost balance and fell off the coracle, according to the local people.
Poornesh went missing while two others survived. His body was retrieved from the waters the next day with the help of expert swimmers from Udupi. His aged parents – Manjula and Krishnappa, who work as agricuture labourers – lost their only son in the tragedy.
The villagers blamed the government of Karnataka for the death, as the incident occurred due to the lack of connectivity to Bentodi, a hamlet of four families.
“We have been living here for ages. Earlier, when a stream was flowing in between Bentodi and Kattinahole, we had a footbridge to cross. However, in the 1970s, the Chakra dam was built across the stream. During the rainy season, the backwater submerges the road and separates us from the neighbouring villages,” says Raju, a resident of Bentodi.
Plight of schoolchildren
The families, belonging to the Adi Karnataka caste, a Scheduled Caste, have no land in their name. They have cultivated half-an-acre to one-acre pieces of land in the gomala, and they are hoping that the government will grant it to them one day. As the yield from the land is low, they work as labourers in farms in the neighbouring villages, crossing the backwater.
Each family has got one coracle, which costs anywhere between ₹12,000 and ₹16,000. Six children – Nireeksha, Deeksha, Manjunath, Sharanya, Nayana and Nandan – cross the backwater by coracle every day to reach their schools located at Kattinahole and Sampekatte.
Following the recent death of Poornesh, the parents are worried about the safety of their children. At the parents’ insistence, the children are staying in their relatives’ house at Kattinahole. Ganapathi, a resident of Kattinahole, told The Hindu that he had sometimes seen children cross the waters by propelling a coracle.
“They have learnt how to propel a coracle. However, it is scary to see children operate the coracle. For their safety, the government should build a bridge,” he said.
Demand for bridge
D.K. Sathyanarayana Bhat, a member of Sampekatte Gram Panchayat, who represents the affected village, said that he had submitted appeals to officers and elected representatives multiple times. Tirthahalli MLA and former minister Araga Jnanendra visited the village after the incident.
Narendra Kumar, executive officer of Hosangara taluk panchayat, stated that he had inspected a hanging bridge at Kanike in Hosanagara taluk, which had become defunct. The same could be shifted for the benefit of Bentodi, and he would submit a report to the officers concerned in this regard.
Published – September 20, 2025 12:53 pm IST
