The Hindu : Karnataka News : Bijapur short-changed in UKP?

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Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Bijapur short-changed in UKP?

By Suresh Bhat

Alamatti Dam, a key component of the Upper Krishna Project

BIJAPUR, JAN. 25. It was in the early Sixties when those living along the Krishna were up in arms when the idea of constructing the Alamatti Dam was mooted as it meant submergence of human habitations and fertile tracts of land along the river. However, the then Government headed by S. Nijalingappa convinced the people that the benefit from the project would be worth the sacrifice. In 1964, the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, laid the foundation stone for the dam.

Work on the dam with a capacity to store 123 tmcft of water, was completed four years ago. Since then, water is being impounded in the dam. However, when it comes to irrigation, the project has done little for the district.

Notwithstanding the reservations expressed by some legislators, particularly those from the Congress, political parties, farmers' organisations and people from different walks of life have come together under the banner of the Bijapur Zilla Samagra Neeravari Horata Samiti led by MP Basanagouda R. Patil Yatnal, and have been agitation for the past six weeks.

Demands

Their main demands are that the "injustice" meted out to the district in providing irrigation should be redressed, water allocation to projects such as the Mulwad Lift Irrigation Scheme should be increased, and industries should be set up in the project area to address the problem of unemployment.

There would not have been scope for resentment in the region if the water allocation to drought-prone districts in the project area was maintained as per the original plan, feels G.B. Mantur, retired Superintending Engineer of the Irrigation Department, who has settled down in Bijapur.

Though it has an irrigation potential of 27 lakh acres, the Upper Krishna Project (UKP) aims at irrigating 15.37 lakh acres under Scheme `A' of the Bachawat Tribunal Award, for which 173 tmcft of water has been allocated. In the draft plan, the Government intends to provide an additional 117 tmcft of water for projects to be taken up under Scheme `B' of the Award. However, Scheme `B' comes into effect only after the surplus water from the Krishna is distributed among the riparian States of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The new tribunal recently constituted by the Union Government is expected to commence this crucial exercise soon.

Rehabilitation

According to official records available with Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigam Ltd., the nodal agency executing the project, a majority of the 201 villages affected by the project have submerged in the backwaters of the ALamatti and Narayanpur reservoirs.

All the affected villages — excluding one village in Gulburga, five in Belgaum and nine in Raichur — are in Bijapur and Bagalkot districts. Over four lakh people from 85,000 families have been displaced and relocated to 100-and-odd rehabilitation centres spread across Bijapur and Bagalkot districts. Cultivable land measuring 2.2 lakh acres is said to have submerged in the backwaters of the reservoir.

However, it is a common grouse here that Gulburga district has got the loin's share when it comes to irrigation, thanks to the political clout it enjoys.

Of the 15.37 lakh acres of land to be irrigated under Scheme `A,' 7,83,660 acres of land (51 per cent of the planned area) is in Gulburga district while 4,41,530 acres (28.7 per cent) is in Bijapur. Raichur and Bagalkot districts come next with 2,57,65 acres (16.75 per cent) and 54,260 acres (3.5 per cent), respectively.

Mr. Mantur says that injustice has been meted out to those who made sacrifices for the sake of the two reservoirs. The Mulwad Lift Irrigation Scheme, which is designed to irrigate 5.2 lakh acres of land in the district, should have been included in Scheme `A' as per the initial plan.

However, only 76,230 acres will come under irrigation in the first stage and the rest will be covered under Scheme `B' as per the present plan, which has been revised many times in the past three decades, he adds.

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