From padayatras to court battles, he has had a stake in water wars in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. After a tribunal settled the centuries-old Cauvery water-sharing dispute, now Mekedatu, a drinking water reservoir project, is the new bone of contention not only between the two states, but also between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.
Karnataka is planning to build a balance reservoir or storage dam built downstream of the main reservoir to capture the excess water flowing over the river. Kaveri, Estimated to cost around Rs 9,000 crore, Karnataka believes it will solve the drinking water shortage in Bengaluru and Ramanagara districts and also generate hydroelectricity to meet the state’s electricity needs.
BJP vs Congress
Attacking the ruling BJP in Karnataka, the Congress is on a five-day padyatra covering 170 km and around 15 assembly constituencies. With the slogan “Namma Neeru Namma Hakku (Our water, our right)”, the party was forced to temporarily suspend the protests on January 13 due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state.
The Congress, while resuming the strike, has demanded the reasons for the delay in the project, highlighting the water crisis.
Karnataka Congress chief leading the march DK Shivakumar Special talk with News18. He said when the Congress was in power, it had submitted the Detailed Project Report (DPR) to the Centre.
“This double engine BJP government is using delayed government strategy on the project. Mekedatu is very important for Bengaluru as it is an international city. We’ve waited a long time. People are asking the ruling BJP to take action or they will teach them a lesson,” Shivakumar said.
Reacting to the protest, Karnataka BJP termed the padyatra as a political drama. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai asked people not to give importance to the Congress protests being carried out for “political gains”.
“The Congress leaders are well aware of the reality of the project. This padyatra is for political gain only. When they were in power they failed to even prepare the detailed project report and now they are questioning the government?” Bommai said while speaking to reporters in Hubballi on Monday.
So would you call Advani’s Rath Yatra, Chandrasekhar’s Yatra, Deve Gowda’s Yatra or Gandhiji’s Padayatra also a political drama? We are fighting for the people of Karnataka and the BJP will have no option but to answer it.
Speaking to News18, former Congress minister Krishna Byre Gowda slammed the government for dragging its feet.
“Bengaluru is a global city. It should be nurtured as it is the lifeline for Karnataka and its development. The goose lays the golden egg and Mekedatu is about saving the city and its people. It is about providing water to all and it should be taken up immediately.”
What is the Mekedatu Project?
Named after the village where the project is expected to be constructed, the reservoir will have a capacity of 284,000 million cubic feet (TMC). It is proposed to be built on the river Kaveri, which is why Tamil Nadu has been strongly opposed to it.
Mekedatu in Kannada translates as “goat’s leap”. Legend has it that a goat was being chased by a tiger and in an attempt to save its life, the goat jumped into this valley leaving the tiger helpless. The hooves of what they claim are still inscribed on the rocks. Locals believe that the goat was none other than an incarnation of Lord Shiva and hence the name Mekedatu.
The project was first planned in 1996 by the Karnataka Power Corporation to provide hydroelectric power to Bengaluru and surrounding districts.
The project went on hold until it was revived once again by the Congress government in Karnataka in 2013. The renewed project proposed the construction of a multi-purpose balancing reservoir, which would help solve the drinking water shortage in Bengaluru and Ramanagara districts as well as generate hydroelectricity to meet the state’s electricity needs.
In 2019, Karnataka submitted a DPR to the Center on its plan to build a reservoir at Ramanagara, about 90 km from Bengaluru and 4 km further from the border with Tamil Nadu.
However, building a dam on Mekedatu is no longer just an inter-state dispute. The Congress and the BJP in Karnataka are now using the delay in the implementation of the project to target each other with the state headed for elections in 2023.
Parched Bangalore
According to a 2021 report, at a glance by the Karnataka Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Bengaluru’s urban population was 96.21 lakh in 2011 and was projected to increase to 1.42 crore by 2021. Situated in a semi-arid peninsular plateau region, the city depends. Heavy on two rivers, Kaveri and Arkavati, to meet their water needs.
The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) calculates the water demand to be 1,400 million per day (MLD).
However, there have been several reports claiming that Bangalore Will dry up in the next few decades.
The BBC reported in 2018 that Bengaluru was one of the cities likely to reach “ground zero” conditions soon and that districts around the capital city, such as Kolar and Ramanagara, would face acute drinking water shortages.
An analysis by the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) also found that the total number of extraction wells in the city has increased from 5,000 to 4,50,000 in the past 30 years.
News18 spoke to S Vishwanath of the Bengaluru-based Biome Environmental Trust, an expert in water-related issues, who emphasized that the situation is not as dire as it appears.
“Bengaluru gets 1,400 to 1,450 MLD of water every day and 775 MLD of water will be made available after the implementation of the fifth phase of Cauvery. If people use water judiciously, reuse treated water and manage rain and groundwater better, we see no shortage.
Asked whether the Mekedatu project is necessary at this point of time, Vishwanath said it is not necessary if it is to address Bengaluru’s water crisis.
“If you look at Mekedatu from an environmental point of view, it is extremely destructive to Cauvery wildlife and river life. If we are looking at providing drinking water for greater urban Bangalore, it provides an additional cushion,” he said.
He said reports of institutions like NITI Aayog have claimed that Bengaluru will be among the 21 cities in India where groundwater will soon run out. “A city is designed for per capita consumption of 135 liters per day. If we design it to be 100 liters per person per day in Bengaluru, we will not have water problems for the next 30 years,” Vishwanath said.
He said the tragedy is that it is like a story set by the NITI Aayog that leads to such protests.
Tamil Nadu stand
Over the years, talks and talks between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on the Mekedatu project have failed. Tamil Nadu has stood firm on its stand, saying that Karnataka has no right to take a decision on the Mekedatu project unless a no-objection certificate is obtained from other coastal states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
According to Tamil Nadu Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan, the reason why the Central Water Commission (CWC) should be given permission to the Mekedatu project by the Karnataka government was not only “flawed” but also “unfair”.
Duraimurugan visited New Delhi twice to convince the Center that Karnataka should not be allowed to go ahead with the project.
Karnataka, however, has made its stand clear. A senior BJP minister, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We will follow what the CWC has said and do not want to get into the petty politics of TN.”
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