NAGERCOIL: Social activist Medha Patkar on Sunday began her 10-day ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat Yatra’ (Addiction free India) from Kanniyakumari urging implementation of prohibition across India. She garlanded the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the Gandhi Mandapam here before embarking on her yatra, which is being undertaken under the aegis of National Association of People’s Movement (NAPM).
Ms. Patkar said that liquor consumption has ruined several families, as they have lost their bread winners. Besides a major portion of the hard earned money that a poor daily wager earned was spent on liquour.
When asked about the Cauvery water sharing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Ms. Patkar said that construction of dams across rivers should be banned, as construction of dams resulted in migration of thousands of families and they also lost their land in this process.
She also said that water sharing issues should be resolved with due deliberations between the concerned States and not through judiciary.
Participating as a special invitee, General Secretary of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Vaiko told reporters that the Prime Minister should dismiss the three union ministers who had participated in the all-party meeting which was convened by the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddharamiah in Bangalore on Friday as it was at that meeting it was decided not release water to Tamil Nadu as per the order of the Supreme Court.
Volunteers of the movement carried portraits of anti-liquor crusader P. Sasi Perumal.
The yatra will cover Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
It will pass through Thiruvananthapuram, Trichur, Coimbatore, Salem, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Mumbai, Jharkhand, Odisha, Ranchi, Raipur and culminate in a large public meeting in Bhopal on October 12.
