Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Irrigation Minister DK Shivakumar on Monday said that 30 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water has been released to Tamil Nadu from Cauvery basin reservoirs till now.
Speaking to reporters at Vidhana Soudha, Shivakumar said, “We are releasing 51,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu every day. We have released 30 TMC till now.”
“As a precautionary measure, we have instructed officials to fill up all the 1,657 tanks in the Cauvery basin area. The agriculture minister has a target of sowing two lakh hectares of area. We have taken up many programmes for this sowing season, including the distribution of 5.90 lakh quintal seeds, stocking up of 27 lakh tonnes of fertilizers and loan disbursals of Rs 25,000 crore to about 30 lakh farmers through cooperatives. Our government is committed to the welfare of the farming community,” he said.
The Irrigation Minister also informed that the Cauvery Water Management Committee had asked to release 20 TMC of water from July 11 to July 30. “But we did not release the water as there was no water for farmers. We called an all-party meeting and discussed the issue,” Shivakumar said.
Shivakumar also spoke about Cauvery aarti on the lines of Ganga aarti and said, “Thanks to the blessings of Goddess Chamundeshwari… we are planning to start Cauvery aarti on the same lines as Ganga aarti in Varanasi. We will study the plan by forming a committee of 20 members from the Cauvery Basin area including MLAs and officials. We will identify the right location for Cauvery aarti. We will start this in a month. The Muzrai department, Cauvery Neeravari Nigam and other departments will be involved in this.”
The Deputy Chief Minister spoke on the Cauvery Brindavan amusement park and said, “We are giving a new look to Cauvery Brindavan amusement park under the PPP model. This proposal will come up before the Cabinet in a couple of days. This project will create 8,000-10,000 jobs for the locals. We had approved the plan in the last budget but it was not rolled out. We will make arrangements for people to stay in the amusement park itself.” (ANI)