BANGALORE: Farmers of the Krishna basin have urged the State Government to learn from the experience of the Cauvery issue and take precautionary measures to ensure that the State did not lose out in the inter-State sharing of surplus waters of the Krishna.

Floated

The farmers have floated an organisation called Krishna-Bheema Co-ordination Committee to create awareness among the Government as well as people about the status of Karnataka with respect to sharing of Krishna waters and the steps to be taken for protecting its interests.

Addressing presspersons in Bangalore on Friday, the office-bearers of the Committee urged the Government to aggressively pursue the State's case before the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal that is looking into inter-State allocation of surplus Krishna waters under Scheme-B.

Fear

They expressed fear that Karnataka might lose out in the Krishna issue also if it did not change its approach as the tribunal was about to come out with its award in about 18 months.

They said that the State Government had agreed to organise a meeting of legislators and members of Parliament as well as farmers' leaders of 13 districts of the Krishna river basin in Bangalore shortly to discuss the issue.

Committee president Panchappa S. Kalburgi alleged that the argument of Karnataka before the tribunal was weak when compared with those of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

Information

Karnataka officials had failed to provide proper information to the State's legal team arguing before the tribunal, he said.

Mr. Kalburgi alleged that the neighbouring State of Maharashtra had violated the inter-State water sharing norms prescribed by the Bachawat Award by exceeding the water-storage capacity.

But Karnataka had failed to take up the issue before the tribunal though he had provided all the necessary information in this regard, Mr Kalburgi said.

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