Karnataka will turn Delta into desert: farmers

From last Friday, farmers started serving porridge and decided to establish 1,000 more such spots across the region as they have been experiencing famine-like situation. 

“The failure of kuruvai season has taken the sheen out of Deepavali for the farmers, with the Samba too looking bleak, the farmers may not be in a position to celebrate the Pongal at all next year,” says Swamimalai S Vimalanathan, Secretary of Cauvery Farmers Protection Association. 

Cauvery will have water for at least seven months and the river will recharge nearly 9,000 sq km of water bodies including the sub canals. Regular release of water for irrigation purposes has been keeping the fields productive. 

This year however, the poor storage in the Mettur dam and Karnataka’s non-cooperative attitude in releasing due share of water has resulted in poor ground water levels across the Delta region. 

Arupathy P Kalyanam, General Secretary of Federation of Farmers Associations, says “Once all across the Delta region we used to get water within 50 feet but in the past few years, the ground water table fell as deep as 300 feet and this would soon pave way for the turning of the evergreen Delta into a desert.” 

He said that Karnataka cultivated paddy in 1901 at 1.15 lakh acre and increased to 6.83 lakh acre in the 70s and 11.20 lakh acre in the 90s and presently it is growing paddy in around 27.28 lakh acre. But the condition is just the reverse in Tamil Nadu. The State cultivated nearly 28.20 lakh acres of paddy earlier and it had shrunken to 24.71 lakh acre altogether. 

“Karnataka needs more water to cater to the increased area of cultivation and so it has stopped releasing water in Cauvery despite having adequate storage,” Arupathy Kalyanam said. “To save its farmers’ interests, the Karnataka government is even ready to disobey the Supreme Court. It has gone to the extent of calling the farmers’ agitation in Tamil Nadu as State sponsored and the Centre is simply sitting like a mute spectator,” he added. 

Arupathy Kalyanam urged the Supreme Court to come forward and initiate stringent action against Karnataka for failing to follow the apex court instructions. 

Vimalanathan added that last year the Delta farmers faced a loss to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore and this year the loss is estimated to be around Rs 3,000 crore. 

“No water for irrigation in Cauvery means no Samba and no harvest and ultimately no Pongal celebrations for the farmers,” he said.