Electricity Minister P. Thangamani on Thursday said the State Government was taking adequate steps to press the Centre to implement the Supreme Court verdict on the Cauvery issue by immediately constituting the Cauvery Management Board (CMB).
Speaking at a meeting organised by the AIADMK to press the Centre to implement the apex court order, Mr. Thangamani recalled the legal battles fought by late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for ensuring that the State farmers did not suffer for want of Cauvery water. But for her dogged legal battles, the State’s rights over the Cauvery would have got dissipated long time ago, he said.
The Minister claimed that all the AIADMK governments had been fighting for the rights of the State’s farmers, while it was the DMK that had surrendered riparian rights for political gains. Several far-reaching measures taken by the AIADMK regimes had eased the power situation that stood between productivity and farmers.
Now, the farmers were enjoying adequate level of power supply and that was reflected in the increasing productivity, especially in the old aycut of the delta region that largely depended on energised pump sets for irrigation during kuruvai paddy season, he pointed out.
Agriculture Minister R. Doraikkannu said the delta farmers had felicitated Jayalalithaa after the final verdict of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was gazetted by the Central Government after a strenuous legal war. Despite Karnataka’s adamant attitude, the State Government was putting its heart and soul into efforts to get the CMB constituted at the earliest.
“We have been applying adequate pressure on the Centre to ensure that the Supreme Court order was followed in letter and in spirit and would go the whole way in getting the riparian rights enshrined in proper legal fashion, he observed.
Rajya Sabha member and former Minister R. Vaithilingam and others spoke.
