The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : AIADMK protests against non-release of Cauvery water

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 29, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

AIADMK protests against non-release of Cauvery water

Special Correspondent

Fast to denounce Centre, Karnataka's "indifferent attitude"

PROTEST: AIADMK women workers displaying dried up paddy crop during the dawn-to-dusk fast observed, near Memorial Hall in Chennai on Thursday. — Photo : M. Vedhan

CHENNAI: A large number of All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) activists observed a dawn-to-dusk fast before the Central Government offices in different parts of the State on Thursday protesting against the "indifferent attitude" of the Centre and the Karnataka Government on the Cauvery issue. The fast was also aimed at demanding implementation of the Cauvery Tribunal's interim award and immediate release of water to the State.

In Chennai, members of various wings of the AIADMK belonging to the North, South and Central Chennai district units took part in the protest in front of Park Town head post office under the leadership of the party's organising secretary, Visalakshi Nedunchezhian.

Many volunteers carried empty pots symbolising scarcity of water for irrigation in the delta. They raised slogans flaying the Centre and the Karnataka Government for non-release of Cauvery water.

The protest followed the appeal Chief Minister Jayalalithaa made to them on Wednesday.

In a statement, she expressed dissatisfaction over the outcome of her meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on July 26. Dr. Singh had not given any assurance on the demand that he immediately direct Karnataka to release the deficit water to the State. Though the Union Minister for Water Resources had acknowledged the veracity of the facts given by her on the quantum of water to be released to the State and the satisfactory storage position in Karnataka's reservoirs, the Prime Minister's decision to send a team to Karnataka to assess the situation would only pave the way for dillydallying, she said.

She had also made it clear to Dr. Singh that there was no water scarcity in Karnataka this year but Tamil Nadu alone suffered owing to non-release of Cauvery water. "If the United Progressive Alliance Government genuinely sympathise[s] with the farmers in Tamil Nadu, it can urge Karnataka to release water to the State. But it has not come forward to do so," she said.

She dubbed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Opposition's memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister on the Cauvery issue "an eyewash." Though the State was only receiving excess water as the reservoirs in Karnataka were full, the Opposition parties could try to hoodwink the people by claiming that the water had been released due to their efforts. But the AIADMK, which had been working with single-minded devotion to the welfare of the people of the State, could not have such contentment, she said.

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