TN crop loss Rs. 300 crores: Paneerselvam

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, OCT. 10. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr. O. Paneerselvam, today said the failure of Karnataka to release 66 tmcft(Thousand million cubic feet) water between June and September had resulted in a loss of Rs. 300 crores to the farmers in the State as they could not cultivate over 50,000 tonnes of `kuruvai' paddy.

Talking to presspersons at the Tamil Nadu House soon after the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, he said ``we came to attend the meeting with the fond hope that the Prime Minister would come to the rescue of Tamil Nadu, but he has belied our hopes.''

The Chief Minister said that during the meeting, he had stressed the need for the Authority to be empowered to oversee the regulation of reservoirs and structures and operate it with its own staff or through the Central Agency whenever a State Government refused to comply with the instructions given by the Authority.

(However, talking to presspersons, the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr. S.M. Krishna, sarcastically described the demand as ``revolutionary'' and impracticable).

Mr. Paneerselvam said he had urged the Authority to ensure that Karnataka implemented the interim award of the Tribunal by making weekly and monthly releases.

Asked what would be the next move, he said Tamil Nadu had already filed a suit in the Supreme Court on this issue and the State would press for early listing of the case.

The State Law Minister, Mr. C. Ponnaiyan, said Tamil Nadu needed a total of 180 tmcft water for completing the `kuruvai' harvest and transplanting samba crop.

He said `kuruvai' crop standing in about 49,000 acres could be harvested by November only if sufficient water was released. Otherwise, these crops would wither away. Similarly, he said `samba' nurseries had been grown in 56,000 acres and they had to be transplanted in six lakh acres. There could be proper growth of paddy only if weekly release of water was ensured.

Accusing Karnataka of violating the Tribunal's order, Mr. Ponnaiyan said that initially, Karnataka had only 3.2 lakh acres of cultivable land. At the time of the interim award, it had extended the cultivable land to 11.2 lakh acres and now further extended it to 26 lakh acres.

He said that at present, Karnataka had a storage of 70 tmcft in its reservoirs. Though its requirement was only 20 tmcft, the State was not releasing water to Tamil Nadu as it wanted to store for the next season.

Meanwhile, the Kerala Minister for Irrigation and Water Supply, Mr. T.M. Jacob, sought to make out a case against the provision that allows the Chairperson of the Cauvery River Authority to take a decision in the absence of a consensus between the States. He was of the view that this clause was contrary to the spirit of federalism and the balance of powers and responsibility between the Centre and the States.

Mr. Jacob again urged the Centre to clear the dozen- odd irrigation projects for which the State had been seeking clearance for several years now.

Though the smallest stake-holder in the dispute, Kerala had not been able to use its share of the Cauvery water because the Centre had not cleared these projects.

As a result, Kerala could use only five tmcft Cauvery water though it contributes about 20 per cent of the total run off of the river.

The meeting was attended by, among others, the Union Water Resources Minister, Mr. Arjun Charan Sethi, the Minister of State for Water Resources, Mr. Bijoya Chakravarty, the Pondicherry Chief Minister, Mr. P. Shanmugham, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Mr. Vijay Goel and the Cabinet Secretary, Mr. T.R. Prasad.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : Shivraj Patil likely to be made CWC member
Next     : Health Ministry alerts State Govts.