Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) general secretary Vaiko hit the road again on Thursday, this time taking up the cause of the delta farmers and also demanding total prohibition.
His tour of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam will last up to December 28. During this period, he hopes to reach out to people and seek to unite them on the slated issues. Mr. Vaiko set out in a van from Kalimedu on the outskirts of Thanjavur.
Mr. Vaiko said the move was aimed at stopping the construction of dams across the Cauvery at Mekedatu by Karnataka, preventing furtherance of the coalbed methane extraction project in the delta districts and demanding total prohibition in the State.
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The MDMK leader reasoned that the construction of dams would convert the fertile delta districts into a desert for want of adequate water for irrigation.
Already Karnataka was flouting all rules and not giving Tamil Nadu its share of the Cauvery waters, and the new dams would add to that misery. If implemented, the “obnoxious” coalbed methane extraction project, too, would ruin the delta region as that would involve practices inimical to agricultural activity.
The successive governments in the State had ruined the people with their singular aim of bolstering the exchequer at the cost of public health and ethical values by converting Tasmac into a money-spinner. That must be ended by promulgating total prohibition in order to save youth and the elderly alike from definite disaster, he noted.
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