Magsaysay award winner and ‘Waterman of India’ Rajendra Singh launched the 1,000-km ‘Krishna Nadi Parirakshana Yatra’, a campaign to conserve the Krishna, from the Kanakadurga bathing ghat upstream the Prakasam Barrage here on Wednesday.
Mr. Singh ceremonially sprinkled the water of the river on his head and set out in a special vehicle to Hamsaladeevi, the mouth of the Krishna.
Addressing the media before setting out on the yatra, Mr. Singh said it would cover several places along the river before culminating at Vijayapura (Bijapur) in Karnataka on August 15.
“The rights of the rivers are linked to the human rights,” Mr. Singh said.
He said that the “greed for grain and electricity” was the primary cause for destruction of the rivers. No structure should be constructed blocking the flow of the river.
Threat to economy
“Rivers are the sources of life, civilisation, and culture. By blocking the flow of the river, the economy of the people depending on it is disturbed. The decision-makers who favoured the building of huge dams are the elite that benefited the most,” Mr Singh charged.
‘Spare flood plains’
Delhi Jal Board member Vikram Soni, who has been leading movements for the conservation of rivers in general and flood plains in particular, said the future generations would have to pay a heavy price for the destruction of the Krishna flood plains. If these flood plains were conserved, the benefits would be huge, he said.
“We are not asking that the capital be shifted from Amaravati. Let it be built away from the flood plains,” he said.
Capital area farmers and agricultural workers’ rights group leader Anumolu Gandhi said the flood plains of the Krishna were being destroyed by indiscriminate sand mining.
He said the yatra would touch several places in the Krishna and Guntur districts along the river and in the Capital area in the next three days before going into Telangana on Sunday.
A.P. and Telangana Jala Sashana Samiti national president Dusharla Satyanarayana would lead the yatra in Telangana.
River conservation activist Baswaraj Patil would lead the yatra in Karnataka, Mr. Gandhi said.
Former MP Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao said the State and Central governments should heed to the advice of the experts and rethink their proposal for construction of the new capital on the flood banks.
NGT petitioner and activist of the River Conservation Movement Satya Bolisetty, CPI(M) leader Ch. Babu Rao, and Krishna Delta Parirakshana Samiti convener K. Sivaji accompanied Mr. Singh.
