Expressing their anguish over the Yettinahole project envisaging diversion of the Nethravati, farmers in Dakshina Kannada on Tuesday urged the State government to first provide a comprehensive irrigation and drinking water scheme for the district.
Speaking at a meeting here, Karnataka Rajya Raita Sangha leader Ravikiran Poonacha said farmers in the district would not allow to implement the project unless the government satisfied their requirements.
“The district is bereft of any irrigation scheme and farmers are forced to spend a lot to irrigate plantations and paddy fields. In such a situation, there is no question of allowing the river diversion project,” he said.
Mr. Poonacha said farmers in the district were kept in the dark about the project even as no scientific study appeared to have been carried out on the quantum of water available in the Nethravati during the monsoon and the summer.
The Minister for Water Resources had promised to hold a dialogue with people in Dakshina Kannada before initiating the project, and there had been no meeting so far, he said.
Another farmer wondered how the government could go ahead with the project in an eco-sensitive zone. He feared that the already existing man-animal conflict would only get intensified if the forest area in the Western Ghats was vandalised by the project. Mr. Poonacha also demanded setting up of a committee to plan comprehensive irrigation for the district. Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim, who was chairing the meeting, said the issue would be placed in the next Karnataka Development Programme review meeting, as the present meeting does not have experts from the field.
Zilla panchayat chief executive officer Thulasi Maddineni said drinking water was being made available to all through a multi-village drinking water project.
Farmers raised a host of other issues, ranging from crop loans to compensation to arecanut growers and from subsidy for agricultural equipment to destruction of paddy fields by unbridled real estate activities.
They wanted a complete ban on conversion of paddy fields for non-agricultural purposes as farmers were serious in cultivating paddy. Ms. Maddineni asked farmers to raise their individual grievances before the monthly meetings being organised every month in zilla panchayats.
