While the MPs from Tamil Nadu are united in holding up the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament over the delay by the Centre in constituting the Cauvery Management Board as per the verdict of the Supreme Court, the major political parties in the State are trying to sweep under the carpet their failures in addressing the water shortage faced by the farmers, point out farming leaders and experts on water conservation.
Though the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) had passed its award in 2007 asking the Centre to constitute the CMB and finalised the quantity of water to be allocated to the riparian States (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry) it took six years for the then ruling dispensation led by Manmohan Singh to gazette the verdict. The Centre gazetted the verdict only in 2013 and that too after the non-relenting fights made by the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
“The DMK which was propping up the Manmohan Singh Government from 2004 to 2013 did nothing to pressurise the authorities either to gazette the court order or to get the CMB constituted. Now the DMK working president MK Stalin alleges that the present Government at the Centre was adopting a step motherly attitude towards Tamil Nadu,” said Kattumannarkoil Kannan, vice-president, Cauvery Delta Farmers’ Welfare Association.
He said no action has been taken by the Dravidian parties (the DMK and the AIADMK) to resolve the water shortage faced by the people of Tamil Nadu. “They are yet to identify a Plan B to resolve the Cauvery issue. Dravidian parties want the Cauvery issue to remain unresolved because it would offer them an anti-Centre platform and they can continue blaming the Centre,” added Kannan.
RV Giri, president, CIFA and Kannan were unanimous in their view that the DMK and the AIADMK which have been ruling Tamil Nadu alternately since 1967 has done nothing to address the Cauvery water issue. “Not only that, the Dravidian Governments failed to build any check dams or barrages in the Cauvery to prevent the wastage of water into the sea,” they said.
“Other than harping on Cauvery waters, the Governments which ruled the State since 1967 have never thought about alternate plans like inter linking the local rivers or to preserve and maintain the 39,202 ponds,” said Kannan. He also pointed out that if the Government clean and de-silt the ponds and water bodies in the region, a lot of water could be saved.
According to Giri, the UPA regime which ruled the country from 2004 to 2014 was in a better position to resolve the Cauvery imbroglio. “Though the Manmohan Singh government survived only because of the support by the DMK, the party failed to capitalise that position for the benefit of Tamil Nadu. The DMK should have got the peninsular Indian rivers Mahanadi, Godavari, Cauvery, Krishna and Pennar inter-linked during that regime,” said Giri.
The indifference of the political parties, mainly the DMK and the AIADMK, towards a major irrigation and drinking water scheme is best illustrated by the Avinashi-Athikkadavu project in western Tamil Nadu. Conceived in 1957, the project which would have solved the drinking water shortage in three western districts of the State continues to remain in paper. “When it was proposed in 1957, the project cost was Rs 134 crore. Now the cost has shot up to Rs 3,523 crore and even then there is no scope of this project taking off,” said GK Nagaraj, BJP leader from western Tamil Nadu.