Link Southern rivers, DMK’s RS Bharathi urges Centre

Chennai: Senior DMK member in the Rajya Sabha, Mr R S Bharathi on Friday urged the Central government to initiate linking of the peninsular rivers of Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery as a long-term solution to the water crisis facing the south.

Participating in the debate on the Central Budget, he appealed to the FM, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman to take up this initiative of linking the these three major rivers, which will be a "boon to the South" and it was not difficult to execute the project.

Referring to Ms Sitharaman's unique position of being "a daughter of Tamil Nadu, daughter-in-law of Andhra Pradesh and representing Karnataka in the Upper house," the DMK member said nobody was better placed to take steps to implement this southern rivers link project than the present Finance minister. The project would also cost only Rs 1,000 crore, he said.

Mr Bharathi said the budget on the whole was not satisfactory, as it had not even mentioned any concrete scheme to tackle the water crisis countrywide, except to make a general mention of it. Some of the new tax proposals were also regressive like higher import duty on newsprint, he pointed out.

Though Ms Nirmala Sitharaman quoting from the Tamil Sangam classic 'Purananooru' was welcome, the DMK member said there was no proposal in the budget for development of Tamil language on par with the other national languages.