Drinking water for Bengaluru: Congress plans padyatra from Mekedatu to city to press for dam
The state government has identified a project site in Kanakapura taluk of Ramanagara district where it has proposed a dam to store water as well as generate power in seasons of high rainfall. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar represents Kanakapura in the Assembly.
The state government believes with a dam across the Cauvery, surplus water from good rainfall can help meet the drinking water needs of Bengaluru and nearby towns and villages for the next 100 years.
The KPCC president and Opposition leader Siddaramaiah announced about their padyatra plans at a press-conference, and added they will announce the dates in the next couple of days. Siddaramaiah said it was during the Congress regime that the government prepared a detailed project report (DPR), but the project had been hanging fire due to resistance from Tamil Nadu for political reasons.
The two Congress leaders said Karnataka faced no legal hurdles to go ahead with the project. The Centre should issue an environment clearance at the earliest, and the state should take it up on top priority, they said.
This project has been planned within the boundaries of Karnataka, and the government will use only that water which would otherwise flow into the sea. Even after the project is implemented, the Cauvery River Authority will ensure Tamil Nadu gets its due share as per the award, the two leaders said.
Karnataka is required to release 192 TMC feet of water to Tamil Nadu in a normal year, but the state is concerned that a lot of water wastefully flows into the sea in normal monsoon years. For drinking water needs, the Cauvery Tribunal has allocated 17 TMC feet of water to Karnataka and 29 TMC feet to Tamil Nadu.
The proposed dam is estimated to cost Rs 6,000 crore and will need about 5,000 acres of land. Karnataka has planned the reservoir for 67 TMC feet (thousand million cubic feet) capacity, much larger than the KRS dam’s storage capacity of 45 TMC feet. The project also involves a 400 MW hydel power station.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin wrote back to previous chief minister BS Yediyurappa requesting him to drop the project. “When Karnataka already has adequate infrastructure for drawing drinking water to meet the demand of Bengaluru Metropolitan area even now, the justification of the need for a reservoir with a storage capacity of 67.16 TMC ft to utilise 4.75 TMC as drinking water is not at all acceptable,” he said in the letter.
( News Source :Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Rashtra News staff and is published from a economictimes.indiatimes.com feed.)
Related searches :
