Cauvery Aarti on lines of Ganga Aarti soon, says Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar
Bengaluru: The ruling Congress Government in Karnataka is all set to embark on a new ritual 'Cauvery aarti' at one of the locations on the banks of River Cauvery in a month's time and the ritual will be on the lines of 'Ganga aarti' held in Varanasi of Uttar Pradesh on the banks of River Ganga.
Disclosing the idea of starting 'Cauvery aarti', Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said to make the 'Cauvery aarti' happen, a 20-member Committee will be formed comprising of MLAs of Mysuru, Mandya, Kodagu and districts falling under River Cauvery basin along with officials concerned of department of Muzrai and Endowment and Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited (CNNL) to decide on conduct of ‘Cauvery Aarti.’
He visited Krishnaraja Sagar reservoir site in Mandya district on Monday to take stock on inflow and outflow water to the reservoir owing to copious rainfall in the catchment areas and told reporters a study will be conducted on the manner in which Ganga aarti is held at Varanasi on the banks of River Ganga. A team from Varanai will be asked to visit the course of River Cauvery and suggest a suitable location to hold Cauvery Aarti.
Shivakumar stated to hold Cauvery aarti in a month’s time after a report from the Committee and the programmes will be framed by Muzrai, CNNL and associated departments to make the programme a grand success.
Meanwhile, Shivakumar stated Karnataka discharged about 30 tmc feet of water to Tamil Nadu as per the readings recorded at Biligundlu, water gauging station and on a daily basis, water release to Tamil Nadu accounts for about 51,000 cusecs.
He stated as per Supreme Court direction, Karnataka needs to release 40 tmc feet of water during normal rainfall years and it only needs to release 10 tmc feet of water to abide by the orders of the Supreme Court.
As many as 1,657 tanks are in Cauvery basin and officials concerned have been directed to fill-up all these tanks since the region has been receiving copious rainfall, he said and stated a target to begin sowing operations in about 2 lakh hectares has been set this year and to meet the target, 5.90 lakh quintals of seeds, 27 lakh tonnes of fertilisers have been kept ready for disbursement. About 30 lakh farmers will be provided loans through cooperative banks and the target is to disburse about Rs 25 lakh crore as agri loans.
“We are giving a new look to Cauvery Brindavan amusement park’ under PPP model and the proposal will come up for discussion in the cabinet meeting,” he said and stated the new look to Brindavan gardens at KRS reservoir site will help to generate about 10,000 jobs.