: Farmers of the Kabini achacut area protested at the Command Area Development Authority (CADA) office on Monday alleging continuous release of water from the Kabini reservoir to Tamil Nadu despite “scanty rainfall in the district over the last two months.”
The farmers were also protesting against the Irrigation Department for not releasing water to the right hand canal and other canals of Kabini so far.
The farmers locked up the office of Chief Engineer B. Shivashankar and few other officials and forced them to remain inside.
Police personnel were deployed to ensure that no untoward incident took place. The farmers continued their protest into the evening and said they would not allow the officials to leave the office until the Chief Engineer instructed officials to release water into the canal and stop releasing water to Tamil Nadu.
The farmers led by Nagendra, Vasanth Kumar, and Vidyasagar, told The Hindu that while water was being released to Tamil Nadu, the local farmers were being deprived of it.
The farmers said standing crops on thousands of hectares of land T. Narsipur, Kollegal, Yelandur were withering. Senior officials of the Irrigation Department said a meeting of the Irrigation Consultative Committee has been fixed for July 24 and a decision to release water into the canal would be taken at the meeting.
