CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu All Farmers’ Associations Coordination Committee and the PMK on Sunday urged Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay to immediately take political and legal steps to prevent Karnataka from expediting steps for building a dam at Mekedatu across the Cauvery river. The steps should include convening a meeting of the farmers associations as well as political parties to discuss the next course of action.
P R Pandian, president, TN Farmers’ Associations Coordination Committee, on Sunday said that Karnataka has carried out visible preparations for the proposed Mekedatu dam project, including survey works, besides embedding iron rods in the rocky riverbed to demarcate the proposed construction site.
Explaining what he witnessed at the proposed site in Karnataka’s Kanakapura region, Pandian told TNIE that a new flight of stairs has been constructed to provide access from the foothill road to the riverbed, around 150ft below at the site chosen for building the dam. Pandian said that in 2024 itself, Karnataka farmers opposed the Mekedatu dam since it would affect irrigation in another part of the state, but the present government is still going ahead with this project for “selfish reasons”.
Meanwhile, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss, in a statement, said that at a time when farmers in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery delta districts are gripped by fear and anxiety that the proposed Mekedatu dam could turn the fertile Cauvery irrigation region into a desert, it is deeply concerning that the Tamil Nadu government has failed to take effective political and legal measures to prevent the project.
Describing the resolution adopted by the Tamil Nadu Assembly on the Mekedatu issue as largely ineffective, the PMK president said that such indifference will not help safeguard the rights and interests of the Cauvery irrigation districts. “The Tamil Nadu government must act with far greater urgency and determination, over and above what the Karnataka government is displaying in pursuing the Mekedatu project. The government should also immediately convene an all-party leaders’ meeting to deliberate on the next course of action and arrive at a united decision on the Mekedatu issue,” he added.
