Protect TN's rights on Cauvery: Anbumani Ramadoss

CHENNAI: PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss on Sunday urged the Tamil Nadu government to immediately act to safeguard the state's Cauvery river rights, warning against any negligence amid Karnataka's intensified efforts to construct the Mekedatu dam.

Flaying Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar's announcement at an event in Mysuru to approach the Union government for clearances by misinterpreting a recent Supreme Court order, he said the state's admission that the project will benefit its farmers exposes its true intention to divert water for irrigation, contradicting its earlier stance that the reservoir was strictly meant for drinking water needs.

"This shift directly invalidates the Detailed Project Report (DPR) submitted by Karnataka and provides sufficient grounds for the Union government and the Supreme Court to reject the proposal entirely," he said in a statement.

Stating that Karnataka's revised estimate of the submergence area from 5,000 hectares to 5,400 hectares indicates that the reservoir will store far more than the planned 67 TMC of water, posing catastrophic environmental and wildlife threats, he alleged "a dam failure due to natural disasters would also trigger devastating floods in downstream regions of Tamil Nadu".

Warning that Tamil Nadu's silence could lead to the permanent loss of its water rights, Anbumani called on the state government to counter Karnataka's false narratives, present the true legal facts to the nation, and immediately convene an all-party meeting to formulate a unified strategy.

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters in an event organized by Pasumai Thayagam in Chennai to save Pallikaranai marshland he demanded that the government immediately notify the Pallikaranai marshland as a protected wetland.

He alleged that successive DMK and AIADMK governments had failed to notify the marshland to facilitate corruption.