MANGALURU: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) verdict giving the go-ahead to the Yettinahole drinking water project has brought to nought all the protests and the four-year legal battle over the project.
Now, environmentalists are of the opinion that the matter is up to the people, who are already feeling the impact with water rationing. People should realise that the situation will become worse once the project is implemented, they said.
Environmentalists have been up in arms against the project which aims to divert the flow of Yettinahole, a major tributary of the Netravathi river, to meet the drinking water needs of parched Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Tumakuru and other districts. They fought a court case on grounds that it is actually an irrigation project and not for drinking water as claimed by the government, and that the project lacks clearance.
A day after the NGT pronounced its verdict, an unusual calm prevailed among environment forums. Environmentalists fighting against the project expressed their helplessness.H Shashidhar Shetty of National Environment Care Federation said they were tired of fighting the case for over four years and dejected about the NGT ruling in favour of the project. “The next course of action is to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court, but we don’t have much hope,” he said.
Environmentalists also feel that they did not get the crucial support from the people of Dakshina Kannada in fighting against the project. The region has already started feeling the impact with severe water crisis. The city is managing with water rationing while the outskirts are struggling to get water even from borewells.
When the state government in 1983 proposed to sink borewells to meet the water needs of the state, Dakshina Kannada was not included on grounds that open wells will be more apt for the rain-abundant region. Environmentalists now point out that there are 88,000 bore wells in Dakshina Kannada and water is depleting at an alarming level.
“When we fought in the streets against Yettinahole, people did not heed us. Now they are not having water to drink, but our concern is the damage Yettinahole project is going to do to the Western Ghats and Nethravathi,” said Dinesh Holla, convener of Sahyadri Sanchaya.