ERODE: Disagreement among farmers continues despite the court verdict on the issue of modernization of the Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) canal.
On the one hand, a group of farmers have announced that they would go on hunger strike if the modernisation works don’t begin from May 1. Meanwhile, another group of farmers have said that they would boycott the parliamentary elections if the GO for this scheme is not cancelled.
In this situation, the district administration has invited the farmers to hold talks regarding this project on Wednesday. This negotiation is going to be held under the leadership of Minister S Muthusamy.
KV Ponnaiyan, the Secretary of Lower Bhavani Ayakkattu Land Owners Association, said, “The LBP canal starts from Lower Bhavani Dam (LBD) in Erode, passes through Tiruppur, and ends in Karur. The canal, which was built 70 years ago, is yet to be modernised.
Due to this, every year, when water is released into the canal, there are leaks in many places. Water is stopped for 10 days each time to repair the breach in the canal, due to which farmers are affected. To avoid this, we are insisting on modernising the canal.”
“Now the Madras HC has ordered that work on this project can start from May 1. We submitted a petition to the LBP officials on Tuesday requesting them to do so. If the works don’t begin, we will stage an indefinite hunger strike from May 5,” he added.
Meanwhile, M Ravi, Organiser of Lower Bhavani Irrigation Conservation Movement, said, “This project may consist of laying of concrete throughout the LBP canal. If it is done, the environment will be damaged and many trees will be destroyed. Hence, we oppose this and urge the government to cancel the GO. We have no objection if this project if it involves renovating only the existing concrete structures and not building new structures. The officials should clarify this.”
Kannan, Executive Engineer of LBP, said, “We plan to start the works from May 1. No concrete floor will be constructed anywhere in the canal under this project and we will explain this to the farmers in the meeting.” It should be noted that the state government has already allocated `709 crore for the modernisation of the canal.