There is one question that increasingly preoccupies about 150,000 farmers and others on the banks of the river Krishna in Karnataka's Bijapur and Bagalkot districts: when will the state government start storing water to the full reservoir (FRL) of 519.6 metres in the Almatti dam? When that happens, their lands and dwellings will be submerged by the backwaters of the dam, which is an important component of Karnataka's Upper Krishna (irrigation) Project (UKP) and has so far cost Rs 194 crores.