Bengaluru: Karnataka Jala Samrakshana Samiti delegation met Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of Jal Shakthi at his office in New Delhi. Requested the Central Government to intervene immediately in the Karnataka Cauvery issue. They also met Cauvery water management authority president C A Haldar and requested him to understand the situation in Karnataka.
A delegation of Former leader Kuruburu Shanthakumar, Aam Aadmi Party state vice president Mohan Dasari, Kannada Chaluvali Nayakaru president Gurudev Narayana Kumar, AAP leader Jagadish Babu and Vijay Singh met the central minister.
Due to in-adequate rains and failed monsoons, 195 out of 227 talks are affected by drought and farmer suicides are on the rise. In Spite of having received the lowest rainfall in many decades, during this critical scarcity, the order of Cauvery water management board to release 3000 cusecs of water to Tamilnadu every day is baseless and unscientific, they said in the requested letter.
Not only are the Karnataka farmers in the Cauvery basin in distress, 1.3 crore residents of Bengaluru city who are dependent only on Cauvery River for drinking water, are staring at a drinking water crisis. In this regard the State Government has failed to conduct meetings with various stakeholders including farmers, Kannada organisations and all-party meeting, hence on behalf of Karnataka Jala Samrakshana Samiti we wish to request the Central Government to intervene immediately and provide justice in the matter of Cauvery issue, they explained in the letter.
The five demands are Cauvery Water Management Authority: Cauvery water regulation committee must immediately reserve their orders and visit the affected areas and consider ground realities rather than rely on figures provided on paper.
The Ministry of Jalashakthi has to intervene immediately and stop the release of Cauvery water unscientifically allotted to Tamil Nadu. Set Up a team of experts who can assess the crisis situation in Cauvery basin on immediate basis and implement a justifiable distress formula. We request you to convene a meeting of chief ministers, water resource ministers and concerned officials of both the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to understand the drought situation in the Cauvery basin firsthand.
More than 480 TMC of water is released to Tamil Nadu during years with good rainfall. Tamil Nadu does not have adequate mechanisms to manage surplus water and it ends up in the Bay of Bengal. Mekedatu dam, when constructed, can easily store 65 TMC of water. This will indeed help both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to handle drought years adequately. We request the Ministry of Jalashakthi to proactively take up this project and expedite required clearances, said AAP leaders.
They added, State of Karnataka bears the entire burden of safeguarding and maintaining the forests in the Western Ghats that help us with plentiful rains. Tamil Nadu that asks for its share of waters should contribute at least Rs 2000 crore a year for protection and conservation of the forests in Karnataka.