Karnataka will suffer from river projects named in Budget: Devegowda

Former prime minister HD Devegowda on Tuesday expressed concern over the planned river linking projects announced in the Union Budget, saying they will cause shortage of drinking water in Karnataka.

Taking part in the general discussion on the budget, the veteran JD(S) leader said Bengaluru city is already witnessing shortfall of drinking water and is utilising water out of the allocation for irrigation that was provided to Karnataka by the Supreme Court.

In her budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had anounced that draft DPRs of five river links - namely Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-TapiNarmada, Godavari-Krishna, Krishna-Pennar and Pennar-Cauvery - have been finalised. Once a consensus is reached among the beneficiary states, the Centre will provide support for implementation, she had said.

“Karnataka is one of the states which is going to suffer very badly, even for drinking water. That is going to be the major issue when the present Budget indicates linking of rivers,” Devegowda said.

He sought clarity and details from the Centre on the Krishna-Pennar and Pennar-Cauvery link projects, which have been proposed. Citing the Krishna-Pennar project, he said “nothing has been said about the share of Karnataka” but Tamil Nadu will get nearly 130 TMC. He asked the Centre to intervene in the matter to enhance Karnataka’s share.

Asserting that the issue is about drinking water, the former prime minister said the Supreme Court has given 4.7 TMC for consumptive usage of drinking water for Bengaluru city. However, he said when Bengaluru city population was calculated in 2011 it was 85 lakh but “today the population in Bengaluru is 130 lakh”. “We are using 50 TMC today out of the allocation for irrigation. You can’t have anything in 4.75 TMC for 130 lakh people,” he asserted.

Devegowda said the Supreme Court had allocated 284 TMC for Karnataka and 400 TMC to Tamil Nadu in the Cauvery water dispute. He alleged that “consideration to allocate drinking water to one-third of Bangalore city” has not been taken as “it does not come under the purview of catchment area”.

Accusing the Centre of “ill treating” Karnataka, he said, “We are like orphans.”