Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Puducherry Lok Sabha member V. Narayanaswamy has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately ensure that the Karaikal region of Puducherry got its share of Cauvery water from Karnataka/Tamil Nadu to save the standing Samba crops.
The Prime Minister, as the Chairman of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), should ensure that Tamil Nadu supplied water to Karaikal in proportionate to what it got from Karnataka, as no water had reached the tailend areas, thus affecting crops on over 27 acres in the region of the union territory.
The Minister, who met Dr. Singh, explained to him that Karikal should have got 6 tmc ft of water from TN and farmers were suffering because of this to great extent.
He told The Hindu that the Karaikal region should have got at least three per cent of the water received by Tamil Nadu from Karnataka in this distress situation.
The Puducherry government filed a petition on Tuesday in the Supreme Court to direct Karnataka to release at least 1,000 cusecs, in addition to 9,000 cusecs ordered to be released to Tamil Nadu.
