Cauvery row: Truckers caught in water war

BENGALURU: The ongoing Cauvery row has made lives miserable for lorry owners and drivers whose lifeline depends totally on the thriving trade between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which got badly affected after the violence in Karnataka on September 12.

“Around 1,500 lorries enter Karnataka from Tamil Nadu daily for transportation of commodities including agricultural, perishable, non-perishable, consumables, electric and electronic goods. All this has not been happening since September 12, and it has been 26 days since we the owners and the drivers have been affected because of the Cauvery issue,” said M.R. Kumaraswamy, President, Tamil Nadu State Lorry Federation.

“Till couple of days ago at least some lorries were allowed to enter Karnataka during night after the police took money from them, ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 600 per lorry,” said Kumaraswamy. “But after the recent face-off between the TN police and their Karnataka counterparts, that too has been suspended.”

He pointed out that “at Attibele-Hosur border, no Tamil Nadu registration lorries enter the city as the TN police advice them it would not be safe as the situation is still volatile in Karnataka. It’s the same case with Karnataka registration lorries entering Tamil Nadu, which is around 400 to 500 lorries per day. But as the SC ruling is in favour of Tamil Nadu, they seem to have no problems with Karnataka vehicles entering their state.”

The state of affairs at the bordering areas near Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu and Chamrajnagar in Karnataka is a bit different. “There are few villages on the fringes such as Hasanur and Dhimbam near Bannariamman Temple, where Tamil Nadu lorries come in large numbers and are allowed to park with their loaded commodities waiting for Karnataka registration lorries to come by. The loads are then transferred onto the Karnataka registration lorries and then ferried into the state to various destinations,” said Mr. Kumaraswamy.

Most of commodities are agricultural produce that include fruits, vegetables, pulses, rice, wheat maize, from Coimbatore and Mettupalayam that regularly comes from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka, the state lorry federation president added.

3 arrested for uploading videos on Cauvery row
The JJ Nagar police arrested three youngsters on charges of uploading inflammatory 79.404 videos and trying to incite people during the recent violence over Cauvery water issue.

The arrested are Mukesh Lakmani, 26, a mechanical engineer, who worked in Presitech Precision Machinery in Peenya, Rakesh Gowda, 25, a mechanical engineer, who worked as a design engineer in Novem solutions and Ashwath, 26, an MBA in marketing. All the three were residents of Mastikatte of Hosanagara taluk in Shivamogga.

The three created a video with the help of a video editing software to record videos which were insulting and tried to create differences between the people of the two states and had uploaded them to YouTube and also to the Facebook on September 14. They have been booked under Sections 153A, 504, 506 r/w 34 of the IPC.