PMK Leader Criticizes Karnataka's Water Management Amid Mekedatu Reservoir Concerns

Concerns Over Water Supply from Karnataka

(File photo included)

Chennai, August 2 - Ambumani Ramadoss, the head of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), expressed on Sunday that if the proposed Mekedatu reservoir had been established, Tamil Nadu would not have received the current water supply from Karnataka's Kabini reservoir. In a statement, he urged the Tamil Nadu government to strongly oppose Karnataka's efforts to implement this project and called for a collaborative action plan involving all political parties and farmers' organizations. He claimed that Karnataka has been releasing irregular amounts of water over the past two days.

He stated, “On Saturday, the flow from the Kabini reservoir into the Cauvery was increased to 25,000 cusecs. By Sunday morning, it was significantly reduced to 10,000 cusecs, but later adjusted to 14,958 cusecs. Eventually, the flow surged to 28,009 cusecs.”

Ambumani accused Karnataka of showing no intention of providing Tamil Nadu with its legal share of water, as evidenced by this erratic pattern.

He further claimed that Karnataka is using the Cauvery River, which flows through Tamil Nadu, merely as a flood discharge channel to extract excess water.

Referring to the current storage levels, Ambumani, a former Union Health Minister, noted that Karnataka's four major reservoirs hold a total of 74.05 TMC of water, which is 64 percent of their total capacity of 114.57 TMC. He asserted that Karnataka is obligated to release 40 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu by the end of July, which could easily be discharged from the nearly full Harangi, Hemavati, and Kabini reservoirs. He alleged, “Instead, Karnataka is diverting a significant portion of the water released from Harangi to fill the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) reservoir.”

The flow from Harangi is currently at 10,430 cusecs, while 14,470 cusecs is being directed towards KRS. He predicted that Hemavati would reach its full capacity within a week, with additional water also being stored in the KRS reservoir, highlighting Karnataka's ongoing refusal to release Tamil Nadu's rightful share of water.