The Hindu : `No Malampuzha water for industries'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

`No Malampuzha water for industries'

By Our Staff Reporter

PALAKKAD JAN. 20. The Minister for Water Resources, T.M. Jacob, has said that there is ``no water to spare from the Malampuzha reservoir for the proposed Palakkad Industrial Water Supply Scheme since there is shortage of water for drinking and irrigation purposes''.

Inaugurating a convention organised by the district committee of the ruling United Democratic Front, its convener, Oommen Chandy, said the Government would give top priority to providing water for drinking and irrigation. So there need not be any apprehensions among the farmers about the diversion of Malampuzha waters for industrial purposes.

In his keynote address, Mr. Jacob said the first priority of the Government was to provide drinking water to the people and the second one was to provide water for irrigation. If water is available after these two purposes other requirements could be met, he said.

The Minister said that though the farmers were demanding the release of Malampuzha waters for paddy cultivation for another week it had to be stopped from Wednesday due to shortage of water.

The District Congress Committee president, V.S. Vijayaraghavan, presided.

All-party meet: Later addressing a press conference, Mr. Jacob said an all-party meeting would be called to discuss the inter-State and other water problems to reach a consensus among political parties in the State.

With a view to solving the water shortage in Attappady, the Government will take up the revised Attappady Valley Irrigation Project.

A district-level all-party meeting called by the Minister here today reached an agreement to go ahead with the Mukkali diversion and to construct six check-dams between Mukkali and Attappady to provide drinking and irrigation water to Eastern Attappady, which is in the grip of drought.

Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, said there was suspicion about the move of the Government to construct the Mukkali check-dam to divert water to Mannarkkad overlooking the pressing needs of Attappady tribals. He said the construction of check-dams should be taken up before taking up the Mukkali diversion to an area where there was no water shortage.

Mr. Achuthanandan along with the Water Resources Minister today visited the Kunnampidayiri dam that was damaged in flood a couple of years ago. It was decided to reconstruct it as a concrete dam. They also visited the Kunnamkattupathy and Themparamada aries and a decision was taken to reconstruct these water storage facilities to help the farmers of the area.

They were accompanied by K. Achuthan, MLA, the Irrigation Chief Engineers, T.K. Sasi and N. Sasi, and the Executive Engineers, K. Ramankutty and Mahanudevan.

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