The Pattali Makkal Katchi kick-started a two-day ‘Save Tamirabharani’ campaign at Papanasam on Saturday. It has vowed to wage a sustained struggle to ensure the construction of a check-dam for every five km along the 122-km-long watercourse from Papanasam to Punnaikayal, where the perennial river enters the Gulf of Mannar.
Party president G.K. Mani flagged off the campaign.
Led by the party’s youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss, motorcycle-borne cadre are campaigning in all villages en route on the need to conserve every drop of Tamirabharani without wasting it even during the monsoon.
Dr. Anbumani, after addressing the public on the roadside, distributed awareness pamphlets.
He asked the public to exert pressure on their MLAs, local body representatives and officials to construct check dams in their areas to save crops and improve groundwater table. After starting the campaign at Papanasam, cadre reached Tirunelveli in the night after traversing Vickramasingampuram, Ambasamudram, Kallidaikurichi, Veeravanallur, Cheranmahadevi and Suthamalli.
Addressing a public meeting later, Dr. Anbumani charged that the Dravidian parties, during their half-a-century-old rule, had failed to construct check dams to save water and thereby strengthen the irrigation system. If they had constructed a check dam for every 2 km across the watercourse, the groundwater table would have improved besides ensuring adequate water for irrigation.
“The Dravidian parties allowed the situation to worsen as a large quantum of river water is going waste into the sea. Had the check dams been built, the surplus water could have been saved to transform lakhs of hectares of arid land into cultivable land to take food grain production to an all time high.
Increased foodgrain production would have brought down prices of essential commodities. Instead of spending several thousand crores of rupees for giving freebies, the governments should have spent this money for strengthening irrigation system by desilting irrigation tanks, channels and constructing thousands of check dams across all rivers,” Dr. Anbumani also said.
The cadres will resume the rally on Sunday from Tirunelveli and reach Punnaikayal via Srivaikundam, Alwarthirunagari, Kurumbur, Tiruchendur, Kayalpattinam and Eral. The campaign would end with a public meeting at Chidambaranagar in Thoothukudi.
