Urging the State government to revive the shelved Tamirabharani– Karumaeniyar– Nambiyar linking project, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Farmers’ Wing members observed a fast at Jawahar Grounds in Palayamkottai on Friday.
Party’s Tirunelveli East district president Dhaya Sankar led the protest. Speakers at the protest venue urged the State government to revive the stalled river-linking project as it would be a panacea for massive migration of people from Sathankulam, Thisaiyanvilai, Radhapuram and Nanguneri to major cities in search of employment. Moreover, it would also check seawater intrusion into land that had badly affected the quality of groundwater in this region.
“After the implementation of two phases of the work on digging a 73 km-long channel on an outlay of Rs. 201 crore, the work came to a halt without the authorities concerned giving any acceptable reason. Even as over 57,000 acres of cultivable land in these regions was craving for water for irrigation, thousands of cusecs of water of the Tamirabharani is going waste into the sea during monsoons. If the State government still refuses to resume the work, the BJP will intensify the agitations for the revival and complete implementation of the project,” said Ganesh Kumar Adityan, general secretary of BJP’s Farmers’ Wing.
After the Tamirabharani– Karumaeniyar– Nambiyar linking project was initiated by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in 2009 on an outlay of Rs. 369 crore, 98 per cent of the work on the first phase was completed between Vellankuzhi and Mela Thediyoor. In the second phase work to be executed between Mela Thediyoor and Moolaikkaraipatti, more than 90 per cent of the work had been covered.
However, the work had been put in cold storage after 50 per cent of this much-awaited ambitious project was completed. It was attributed to non-availability of funds to be released by the Central government under its Acceleration Irrigation Benefits Programme.
Even after former Radhapuram MLA M. Appavu approached the Madras High Court for getting a direction in favour of resuming the stalled work, there was no progress in the river-linking programme, the protestors said.
