This happened mostly in Mandya where the river Cauvery flows, against the Supreme Court directive to release 15,000 cusecs of water to downstream Tamil Nadu.
Advertisement
Restricted orders have been clamped around the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam and entry of visitors is prohibited till 9th September, as the Cauvery row intensified up after Supreme Court directive on a petition by the Tamil Nadu government. This time also, we had sought to release 10,000 cusecs of water but the court did not approve.
On Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramiah made an appeal for peace and said there should be no damage to public property during the bandh.
The protestors who had gathered at the bus station raised slogans against water resources minister, M B Patil, for failing to furnish accurate information to Supreme Court, and senior advocate, Fali Nariman, for not placing affective arguments on behalf of the state in SC.
“Of this 57 TMC feet, almost 9 TMC feet is dead storage and 3 TMC feet will evaporate”. By sticking to the verdict of the tribunal, Karnataka must give the water allotted for Tamil Nadu and it should be happy with whatever is being given to it.
“For drinking water, we need 28.08 tmc of water and for agriculture, we need 47.71 tmc. How will the government manage this”, asked Narasaraju.
Police said the sick farmers were treated as outpatients and discharged. “However, so far, we have not received any communication as yet”, he said.
“In 2012-13, when Jagadish Shettar was the CM, the state had released water up to 10,000 cusecs as a good will gesture”. But this may cause serious trouble for the farmers of the State as well, leading to fall of crop production in future.
Shivaraj Kumar’s late father and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar had successfully lead the Gokak agitation to make Kannada, the first language of the state in schools decades ago.
Protests have been reported from several parts of the state including Bengaluru, Kolar, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, as also from few northern districts.
The Supervisory Committee was set up by the apex court in May 2013 as a pro-tem measure for implementing the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal award, which the central government notified in February of 2013 six years after the tribunal declared the award in February 2007.
“Cauvery is like a mother to the people of Mandya”.
Advertisement
With four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin, not having enough water revenue department sources paint a grim picture on the water situation in the six to seven districts of Chamrajnagar, Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan, Ramangaram, Bangalore urban and rural which are exclusively dependent on the Cauvery.
