Puttur: A large number of people from the district agitated against the controversial Yettinahole Integrated Drinking Water Project at Uppinangady on Tuesday September 15.
The sporadic but often heavy rains did not deter the protesters as they raised slogans and marched from Aditya hotel to Uppinangady bypass junction, blocking the national highway all morning. They also courted arrest as part of the planned ‘jail bharo andolan’, although the strength of the police were comparatively less.
Addressing the protest, Dr Niranjan Rai, convener of Anti Netravati River Diversion Action Committee said, “We are not against government for providing drinking water to the northern districts of Karnataka but our agitation is because of harm that the project will cause to the environment – it will harm the humankind in the long run”.
This project is nothing but a means to loot the people. All people irrespective of caste, creed and religion have joined the protest today, he added.
He stressed that the river does not have enough water. He said that the project will not fetch 24 TMC of water as projected, but only 9 TMC. Efforts are also going on to divert water from the Netravati and the Kumaradhar rivers. ” 220 mw of electricity will be required for this project, and to fulfill that need, the government will also implement the Niddodi ultra mega power project. Already we are facing problems due to UPCL, and in future, the problems will only increase,” he said. It is nothing but a hoax by the State officials, he added.
Dinesh Holla, convenor of Sahyadri Samrakshana Sanchaya, MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, Sri Rajashekharananda Swamiji of Gurupur Vajradehi Math, Sri Gurudevananda Swamiji of Odiyoor Math, Sri Mohandas Paramahamsa Swamiji of Mahalaxmi temple, Manila, Youth Congress leader Mithun Rai, Bajrang Dal leader Sharan Pumpwell and many others joined the protest. Puttur MLA Shakuntala Shetty, Beltangady MLA Vasanth Bangera and few others visited the protest site and showed their support.
The police finally managed to disperse the protestors after detaining many of them. By late afternoon, the traffic returned to normal.
