Minister Jayakumar refutes Duraimurugan’s charges
Jayakumar said everyone in Tamil Nadu knew how the DMK had bungled in major inter-state river water issues like Cauvery and Mullaiperiyar.
CHENNAI: Tearing into the former PWD minister of the state and senior DMK leader Duraimurugan for faulting the ruling AIADMK for its poor water management in a year when the Mettur dam has surplused again, the Fisheries minister and senior member of the Edappadi K Palaniswami-led cabinet dismissed them as ludicrous and with no basis in facts.
In a detailed seven-page statement here on Saturday, Mr. Jayakumar said everyone in Tamil Nadu knew how the DMK had bungled in major inter-state river water issues like Cauvery and Mullaiperiyar. The DMK, while in power earlier, remained a mute spectator when upper riparian Karnataka was then building dams across other branches of the Cauvery like Kabini, Hemavathy, Harangi and Sornavathi rivers.
"Tamil Nadu's rights on Cauvery was compromised even then," countered Jayakumar, adding, it was only the former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's sustained legal actions that ensured the gazetting of the Cauvery Tribunal's final order and which subsequently led to the formation of the Cauvery Management Board and Cauvery regulation committee for implementing the Award.
It was again 'Amma's actions that enabled raising the water storage level in the Mullaiperiyar dam from 136-ft to 142-ft on the basis of a Supreme court order, the minister pointed out.
The subsequent water management initiatives since 2016 like the 'Kudimaramathu scheme' to rejuvenate water bodies in Tamil Nadu for which Rs. 500 crore this year, de-silting of major lakes and even dams like Mettur reservoir, allowing farmers to take the top alluvial soil for enriching their farms, construction of five check dams and two barrages across Cauvery to ensure better water storage and utilization, institutionalizing the rain water harvesting system, deepening of reservoirs that feed Chennai's water supply and construction of a `380 crore check dam in Tiruvallur district that will facilitate an additional one tmcft water storage for Chennai and the World Bank-assisted `2,131 crore canals modernization project, all testified to AIADMK's huge contribution to water management practices in the State, Jayakumar added.