EXPERTS: RESOLVE CAUVERY ISSUE BY INTER-LINKING KARNATAKA RIVERS
Monday, 30 March 2015 | Kumar Chellappan | Chennai
Saturday’s bandh in Tamil Nadu against the Karnataka Government’s move to construct a dam across the Cauvery river at Mekedatu is being seen as a wake up call for the Union Government to speed up the process of resolving the Cauvery Water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. “The DMK politicised the Cauvery water issue and over the years it has turned out to be a political game plan between the DMK and the AIADMK. There is no possibility of a permanent political solution for the Cauvery Dispute under the present conditions and this has all the potential to escalate into another war of secession against the Centre by Tamil Nadu,” said senior scribe N Kalyanasundaram who has covered the issues since early 1960.
He said past water scarcities in Tamil Nadu, when the States were ruled by the Congress, were non-events. “I have seen with my own eyes the then Chief Minister K Kamaraj lifting up the telephone, calling his Karnataka counterpart and resolving the issue within minutes. It was only with the advent of the DMK, the Cauvery issue got politicised. With the formation of the AIADMK by late MGR, the Cauvery ended up as a vote mobilising issue,” he said.
The Centre has failed to play a constructive role and sort out the issue. “Though the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal delivered its final verdict in 2007, the UPA Government got its gazetted only in 2013. And no action has been taken till date to constitute the Cauvery Management Board and the Cauvery Water Regulation Zone as per the CWDT verdict.
“This is also not going to happen in the near future. The BJP government knows well that any move which is not acceptable to the people of Karnataka would be detrimental to the interests of the party in the State. In Tamil Nadu it has nothing to lose as the party is no major presence,” said Kalyanasundaram. According to M S Menon, former director general of Central water commission, the only option available to the centre is to nationalise the country’s rivers and order the linking of Hemavathi, Netravati and Cauvery along with inter linking of all major rivers in India.
The National Water Development Authority under the Ministry of water resources has finalised a proposal to divert surplus water from Netravati basin to water deficient Cauvery basin in Tamil Nadu, pointed out Dr Kalyanaraman, former executive of Asian Development Bank and director of Saraswathi Research Centre, a Chennai think tank.
“Initially it was thought that a total of 6 MW power would be required to pump the water from Hemavathi basin to Cauvery. But it is possible to transfer the water through a tunnel of 8 km long. Entrust the job to companies specialising in boring lengthy tunnels. Here in Chennai, 11 tunnel boring machines are making 9 km long tunnel underneath the city for the Metro Rail,” said Dr Kalyanaraman.http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/experts-resolve-cauvery-issue--by-inter-linking-karnataka-rivers.html
Comment:
A dramatic solution exists for the recurrent Kaveri water disputes: to increase the water flows in the river by moving waters which are now wasted into the Arabian Sea through tunnels into Kaveri. This is called Hemavati-Netravati link as part of the GOI's river interlinking project which has been approved by the Hon'ble SC in a land-mark judgment of a Bench headed by CJI Kapadia directing GOI to implementing the interlinking project expeditiously under PM's supervision.
The project can be implemented very rapidly, say in 6 months' time and is ready for award of contracts. The project area is entirely in Karnataka State and will benefit both the States of Karnataka ,Tamil Nadu and Union Territory Pondicherry. A win-win situation.
NaMo should not only constitute the Kaveri Management Board for river basin integration but also take up on a priority basis the interlinking of Kaveri with Hemavathy-Netravati which will almost double the water supply in the great river, lifeline of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. BJP will earn the gratitude of all people of southern Bharatam.
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The Proposal: This link proposes to divert 188 Mcum of surplus water from Netravati basin to water short Cauvery basin to irrigate an area of about 33,813 hectares under the command of Hemavati Irrigation Project in the drought prone Tumkur, Hassan and Mandya districts of Karnataka. In this project too, the total lift shall be of the order of 81 m, in two stages; consuming a total power of about 6 MW. The total length of the canal is about 11 km., which includes 3 tunnels of total length of 8.4 km. Engineering Aspect: The project proposal comprises two stages. Under Stage-I, the surplus waters of Yattinhole reservoir of Netravati basin will be lifted to a height of 19.50 m to divert into Hemavati river. Under Stage-II, the combined surplus waters of Kerihole and Hongadhallad hole reservoirs of Netravati basin will be lifted to a height of 61.31 m for diverting into Hemavati river of Cauvery basin. The conveyance system from Yattinhole to Hemavati river is 3.54 km long (including 3.04 km long tunnel). The interlinking tunnel from Keri hole to Hongadhallad hole reservoir is 3.98 km long. The conveyance system from Hongadhallad hole to Hemavati river is 3.30 km long with a tunnel of 1.375 km. Environmental Issue: The Yattinhole reservoir at FRL 900.00 m will submerge about 295 ha of area in Sakleshpur taluk of Hassan district, of which 78 ha is in forest land, 173 ha in cultivable land and 44 ha under non-agricultural use. The Keri hole reservoir at FRL 865.70 m will submerge an area of about 120 ha of which, 33 ha is forest land, 73 ha is cultivable land and 14 ha under non-agricultural use. The third reservoir viz. Hongadhallad hole at FRL 865.70 m will submerge about 350 ha, of which 97 ha is forest land, 218 ha is cultivable land and 35 ha under non-agricultural use. No important historical monuments and archaeological structures will be coming under submergence. The submergence area coming under these reservoirs are uninhabited and as such no population is affected due to the submergence. |
http://www.nwda.gov.in/index4.
Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Centre
Background information and past reports
Kuruvai in parched Cauvery delta. Karnataka, implement Netravati-Hemavati link to double water-flow in Cauvery for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu farmers.
KURUVAI REMAINS NON-STARTER IN PARCHED CAUVERY DELTA AGAIN
Monday, 08 July 2013 | Kumar Chellappan | CHENNAI
For the second year in succession, the Kuruvai, a short-term paddy crop in Cauvery Delta, Tamil Nadu’s rice bowl, has remained a non-starter due to water shortage.
Preparations for the Kuruvai crop should have begun in the first week of June. Since there is not enough water in the Mettur Dam in Tamil Nadu, farmers foresaw the writing on the wall and opted out of the short-term crop. This means that the entire farming community in the Cauvery Delta spread across the four fertile districts along River Cauvery is in for major financial crisis. The Kuruvai is cultivated in more than five lakh acres in the districts of Thiruvaroor, Tiruchi, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur and parts of Cuddalore.
Water is released from Mettur Dam on every June 12 which sustains the Kuruvai crop, the main cash crop of the farmers in the Delta districts. Since Karnataka did not release water this year, the Kuruvai dreams of farmers in Tamil Nadu withered in the beginning.
The Mettur Dam could be opened only if the water level is above the 90 ft mark. But on Monday morning the water level stood at 16ft mark making it clear that the dam could not be opened even in July. “There is no water even for drinking purpose. Though there has been copious rainfall in Kerala and Karnataka, the water from Krishna Raja Sagar Dam in Karnataka has not reached Mettur Dam. Farmers in the Cauvery Delta are in for distress,” said S Ranganathan, the septuagenarian farmer told The Pioneer over telephone from Mannargudi.
Ranganathan who also heads the Cauvery Delta Farmers’ Welfare Association, blamed the Centre for its failure in constituting the Cauvery Water Management Board as per the directive of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal. “The monitoring agency looking after the responsibilities of the CWMB is a toothless body. Though the Tribunal issued the final orders in 2007, the Union Government deliberately delayed the constitution of the CWMB for obvious reasons,” said Ranganathan.
Farmers like Kattumannarkoil Kannan and Virudachalam Giri said the entire farming community in Tamil Nadu are up in arms against the Manmohan Singh Government for its failure to resolve the water shortage in south India.
“In 2004, the UPA Government had promised that they would make a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility of linking the rivers of the country starting with the south-bound rivers. The promise was made against the backdrop of the National Democratic Alliance Government’s decision to take up the inter-linking of the country’s major rivers at a cost of Rs 6 lakh crore,” said Kannan.
According to Giri, a farmer-cum-leader of the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA), the main attraction of the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA-1 was its promise to take up the inter-linking ofpeninsular Indian rivers. “But they dilly-dallied the issue while flood and draught ravaged the country every year since 2004,” said Giri.
Though the apex court too asked the Government to complete the inter-linking of major rivers in a time-bound manner, the UPA Government showed scant regards to the court directive. Meanwhile, every year States like Uttarkhand, Assam, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha suffer the fury of floods, landslides and landslips.
Prof PM Natarajan, director, Centre For Climate Change, Periyar Maniammai University, Thanjavur, said there was surplus water in all the Karnataka rivers. “Netravati, Hemavathi and Herangi rivers are all overflowing and the surplus water are discharged into the Arabian sea. It would have been possible for us to divert the water to Cauvery through a series of link canals,” said Prof Natarajan.
The National Water Development Authority (NWDA) under the Ministry of Water Resources has finalised a proposal to divert surplus water from Netravati basin to water-deficient Cauvery basin in Tamil Nadu, pointed out Dr S Kalyanaraman, former director, Asian Development Bank. “Initially it was thought that a total of 6 MW power would be required to pump the water from Hemavathi basin to Cauvery. But it is possible to transfer the water through a tunnel of 8 km and there is no need of any pumping. All we have to do is to entrust the job to companies specialising in boring lengthy tunnels. Here in Chennai, 11 tunnel boring machines are making 9-km long tunnel underneath the city for the Metro Rail,” said Dr Kalyanaraman.
Enquiries with engineers leading the tunnel boring operations of the Chennai Metro Rail Ltd revealed that it was not at all a big deal to make tunnels of any length and diametre. Dr Kalyanaraman said the diversion of flood water of Hemavathy and Netravathy to Cauvery would lead to a win-win situation for Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Pudussery.
“Tumkur, Hassan and Mandya districts, the drought-prone regions in Karnataka could be made ever green gardens once the project is completed. The entire water needs of the Cauvery Delta region too could be resolved with this project,” he said. Once the issue of the sharing of Cauvery water is resolved, people in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu can heave a sigh of relief since rioting and vandalism in the name of water too would become a thing of the past.http://www.dailypioneer.com/
CM STRESSES ON LINKING OF RIVERS TO END DROUGHT IN AP
Monday, 30 March 2015 | Omer Farooq | Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said his Government will work for the interlinking of rivers of Krishna, Godavari and Penna to make the State completely drought free. He was speaking after laying foundation stone of Pattiseema lift irrigation project in West Godavari district on Sunday, which seeks to interlink Godavari and Krishna to divert surplus waters of Godavari to Krishna basin.
Speaking on the occasion he said that interlinking of rivers will put an end to the problem of drought inAndhra Pradesh. “Every year more than 3,000 tmc ft of water of Godavari is going waste in to the sea. Even if we are able to utilize 1,000 tmcft, Andhra Pradesh will never face drought,” he said. Pattiseema lift irrigation envisages diverting 80 tmcft of water from Godavari to Krishna for irrigation and supplying of water to Rayalseema. Naidu announced payment of additional Rs20,000 per acre to the farmers who lose their lands to Pattiseema.
“Plans are ready to complete the Rs,1300 crore project in a year’s time”, Naidu said. Lashing out at the previous Congress Government for neglecting the irrigation projects of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said his Government is committed to complete the Polavaram project in four years. “with the completion of Polavaram project, ever acre of land in AP will get water for irrigation,” he said. Thanking the people of West Godavari district for their support in elections, he said Pattiseema project was a thanksgiving. He also announced setting up marine university in the district.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/cm-stresses-on-linking-of-rivers-to-end-drought-in-ap.html