Terming the bandh in Tamil Nadu over Karnataka’s refusal to release Cauvery water “politically motivated”, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jayachandra today said, “We have built dams not for releasing water to Tamil Nadu. Let Tamil Nadu build dams for storing water. Let it build a dam near Hogenakkal. Bandh or no bandh, we don’t have water to release to Tamil Nadu.” He was responding to a question on the bandh in the neighbouring State.
“Bandh tactics will not work,” he said, adding that deficit monsoon has put Karnataka farmers in greater distress than any other State. “We have released water to Tamil Nadu when the State has received normal monsoon,” he told presspersons here.
The government would make its stance clear before the Supreme Court on availability of water in reservoirs in Karnataka. The State would file an affidavit in the apex court explaining its inability to release water to Tamil Nadu owing to deficit rainfall and poor storage of water in reservoirs in the Cauvery basin.
3,000 tanks dry
Stating that more than 3,000 tanks in the State have dried up owing to below normal rainfall, the Minister said Tamil Nadu farmers were aware of the situation in Karnataka. “Let farmers of Tamil Nadu explain the severity of water crisis in Karnataka to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.”
Tamil Nadu reservoirs have adequate quantity of water for samba and kuruvai crops. Moreover, Tamil Nadu will get north-east monsoon next month. But the release of water to paddy and sugarcane crops of farmers in Karnataka has been stopped, he said.
