BENGALURU: Tourism Minister CP Yogeshwar on Friday announced that the government had started the exercise of making Jog Falls a perennial waterfall and introduce speed boats to bring tourists from Kerala and Goa to Honnavar to visit the falls. The minister said 200 cusecs of water will be released from Linganmakki dam for making the falls perennial. He added, the government has finalised tenders for Rs 185 crore to give the waterfall a makeover.
The project will be implemented by the energy department and the tourism department will construct two hotels of 1,000 rooms to handle the rush and the site was also in the heli-tourism circuit list. He made this announcement after holding a meeting with the tourism and energy department officials. He also announced that speed boats will bring tourists from Goa and Kerala from the Arabian Sea to Honnavar port and from their they will travel 35 km by road to reach the site.
However, the proposal has not gone down well with environmentalists, biodiversity experts and even officials from the tourism department. “Earlier, the government wanted to install motors in the falls to pump up water to make it perennial and now they want to release water from the dam. The government is not understanding the sensitivity of the region. It is a biodiversity hotspot. Yogeshwar is keen on implementing it because it is Raghavendra’s (chief minister’s son’s) pet project and it is his home constituency,” an official seeking anonymity said.
Another official from the environment department said, “The minister and his team is reasoning that the project is being implemented in an area belonging to the energy department, but they are failing to understand that the area is in silos, it is abutting the waterfalls and the forest area. The loss will be permanent and irreparable.”