Farmers from Siddapura and neighbouring villages, under the banner of Udupi Zilla Raitha Sangha, began an indefinite relay dharna to protest against the delay in implementation of the Varahi Irrigation Project in front of the office of the Chief Engineer of the project here on Thursday.
They said they would continue their dharna until the elected representatives or the officials of the project assure them that the project would be completed within a limited timeframe. Besides farmers, representatives of all political parties participated in the dharna.
Addressing protesters, Pratapchandra Shetty, MLC, said that neither the Ministers nor the officials were interested in completing the project. While Major and Medium Irrigation Minister M.B. Patil had assured that the work on the project would be complete by June 15 and Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake had promised that it would be completed by the end of the year.
Both these deadlines had passed and the work was nowhere nearing completion. “We have waited for 35 years. We cannot wait any longer. Ministers and officials can no longer take us for granted,” Mr. Shetty said.
Though there was provision for Extra Financial Implementation in the project, it was meant to be used only for urgent works. “But this provision has been misused by the officials. There are lot of irregularities in the project,” he said.
The project was expected to provide irrigation facilities to 33 villages in Kundapur taluk and 33 villages in Udupi taluk. The length of the Varahi Right Bank Canal was 42.37 km, but land acquisition had taken place just for a 24 km-long canal. For the Left Bank Canal, 44.35 km-long, land acquisition had been done just for 30 km.
The government had appointed almost all engineers who were nearing retirement. These engineers could hardly be expected to take interest in the project or expediting it. “Whenever any query was asked about the project under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, evasive replies are given,” Mr. Shetty said.
R. Nataraju, Chief Engineer In-charge of the project, said the design of the project had changed several times, which caused the delay. There were four stretches each in both Right Bank and Left Bank canals where land acquisition works had not been completed. In some places, the soil was loose. “But we will try to release water in the canals by the end of March,” he said.
