Bengaluru: Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) Youth Wing Leader and Former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to convene an all-party meet with immediate effect to discuss the Mekedatu dam issue. This is following Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s recent statement of his efforts to construct a dam at Mekedatu at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
Ramadoss in a statement said that the Karnataka Chief Minister had already issued a statement that he was travelling to New Delhi to meet Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Shekhawat in this regard and get approval for the project.
Ramadoss said that the statements of Karnataka Chief Minister Bommai and that of Union Water Resources Minister in the past few days mean that some moves have been made regarding the Mekedatu dam.
He also said that even as the Mekedatu Dam issue is under consideration of the Supreme Court of India, the statements of Karnataka Chief Minister and Union Water Resources Minister are not in the right spirit. He called upon the Tamil Nadu government to take cognisance of the matter.
The former Union Minister also cited the example of Karnataka constructing a dam across ‘Thenpennai river’ even though they did not have the right to do so.
The construction of a dam across Cauvery river at Mekedatu has been a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with the former moving the Supreme Court against the proposed construction. An all-party delegation led by Tamil Nadu Water Resources minister, S. Duraimurugan had met Union Minister for Water Resources Gajendra Singh Shekhawat against the proposed dam.
