Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Dharam Singh says Manmohan’s response on Kalasa-Banduri positive

Special Correspondent

State Congress leaders want ban on project work to go

GULBARGA: The former Chief Minister and leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly N. Dharam Singh on Sunday said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had positively responded to the demand made by a delegation of State Congress leaders for lifting the ban imposed on taking up work on the Kalasa-Banduri Nala project.

Mr. Singh, who returned from New Delhi after meeting AICC president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Central leaders, said the Prime Minister promised to look into the demand and take a decision shortly in consultation with Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz.

The delegation apprised the Prime Minister about the importance of the project which aimed at providing drinking water to the villages and towns in Dharwad district by diverting 7.56 tmcft of water from Mahadayi river, going waste into the Arabian Sea. The project was conceived when R. Gundu Rao was Chief Minister and later pursued by S.M. Krishna.

Mr. Singh said the delegation, which submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister, told him that the BJP was trying to make political capital out of the controversy following the reported statement by Ms. Gandhi that the Congress would not allow diversion of Mahadayi river during the Goa Assembly election campaign. In fact, Ms. Gandhi had never made a statement on those lines and the Congress like other parties had only made a mention of the issue in its manifesto.

He said it was the NDA Government which stayed work on the Kalasa-Banduri Nala project after the Goa Government’s complaint. When A.B. Vajpayee was Prime Minister, an all-party delegation was taken to Centre twice seeking vacation of stay on the execution of the Kalasa-Banduri project, but in vain.

The delegation had requested the Prime Minister that an affidavit favourable to Karnataka be filed

in the Supreme Court after the Goa Government moved the court against the Kalasa-Banduri Nala project.

Mr. Singh said there were precedents of the Government permitting utilisation of water for drinking from one State to another.

Referring to the stepping up of the agitation in north Karnataka by the BJP against Ms. Gandhi for her reported statement on the Kalasa-Banduri Nala project, Mr. Singh said the Congress would counter this by holding public meetings throughout the region, giving the real picture to the people and exposing the role of the BJP in stalling the project.

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