Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha has demanded that the Irrigation Consultative Committee hold an emergency meeting to discuss the water crisis at the tail-end areas of the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal (TLBC) and find a solution.
Addressing a press conference at the Reporters’ Guild here on Saturday, the organisation’s State president Chamarasa Malipatil said that the farmers had prepared over 2 lakh acres of fields along the TLBC for transplantation and were desperately waiting for water.
“As per the committee’s decision, 3,100 cusecs of water, less than what was released during the monsoon, is being released. But the entire water is being used for authorised and unauthorised land in Gangavathi taluk in Koppal district and Sindhanur taluk of Raichur district and it is causing a scarcity of water in Manvi and Raichur taluks that fall under Sirwar and Yermarus irrigation divisions,” he said.
The task of the committee is, he added, not just fixing the quantity and the date of water release from the Tungabhadra reservoir but to address the mismanagement of water along the canal.
“The committee should first allocate a specific amount of water being released to TLBC among each of its distributories and closely monitor to ensure that all the distributories receive their share. Specified water gauges should strictly be maintained at each measuring points,” he said.
He criticised the people’s representatives of Manvi and Raichur taluks for their “deliberate silence” even though thousands of farmers from their own areas were suffering a lot owing to the scarcity of water for irrigation.
The farmers’ leader strongly opposed the Union Cabinet’s decision to amend the contentious Land Acquisition Act through an ordinance.
“As per the amendments to the Act, farmers’ consent is not mandatory for acquiring their land for various development projects,” he said.
