The Hindu : Karnataka News : Kharge has many challenges on irrigation front

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Kharge has many challenges on irrigation front

By T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA, JUNE 8. The Water Resources Minister, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, has the huge responsibility of safeguarding the unutilised share of Krishna waters and also to protect the interests of the State in sharing the surplus waters for which a tribunal has been constituted by the Centre.

Mr. Kharge has to meet the challenge posed by Andhra Pradesh which has made it clear that it will stake claim to the unutilised share of the State in the Krishna waters allocated under Scheme A of the Bachawat Tribunal Award.

Karnataka had all along maintained that the Bachawat Tribunal deprived it of its due share under Scheme A. The State had been promised a lion's share in the allocation of surplus waters under Scheme B.

Unlike Karnataka and Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh not only utilised its share but also created and planned to create infrastructure for utilisation of more water.

According to official estimates, Karnataka has so far utilised less than 600 tmcft of water in the river as against its share of 729 tmcft. Many medium irrigation projects in the Krishna Basin are yet to be completed.

The allocation of the Water Resources portfolio to Mr. Kharge is seen as a clever move by the Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh. This has rekindled the hopes of long-pending irrigation projects in the Krishna Basin — Bennethora, Amarja, and Lower Mullamari — getting priority. The utilisation of the unutilised share of water allocated in the Bheema by speeding up work on major projects such as the Bheema Lift Irrigation Project and taking up the construction of the new barrages proposed across the Bheema will be another priority for Mr. Kharge. Gulbarga district, where many major and medium irrigation projects have been pending for more than three decades, should feel elated now with Mr. Kharge getting the crucial portfolio.

As Home Minister in the S.M. Krishna Ministry, Mr. Kharge was responsible for bringing projects such as the Police Training School, which is proposed to be converted into a training school on the lines of the National Police Academy, to Gulbarga. He was instrumental in getting the sanction for a new office complex of the Inspector-General of Police and Superintendent of Police in Gulbarga city and also District Police Office at Yadgir. He provided an impetus to the modernisation of the police force. A Regional Forensic Science Laboratory was sanctioned for Gulbarga district during his tenure as Home Minister.

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