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dam-l Oppisition to Large Irrigation Projects in Kerala (fwd)
apologies for cross-postings...
Forwarded message:
> From cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in Thu Feb 17 08:33:08 2000
> Message-ID: <38ABF638.6A625FD5@del3.vsnl.net.in>
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 18:53:04 +0530
> From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in>
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> Subject: Oppisition to Large Irrigation Projects in Kerala
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>
> Source: Business Line, Feb. 17, 2000
>
> Opposition to irrigation projects in Kerala
>
> Our Bureau
>
> KOZHIKODE, Feb. 16
>
> DESCRIBING that the move to set up five large
> irrigation
> projects in Wayanad was prompted by an
> ``irrigation-mafia,'' the Wayanad Anti-Dam Agitation
> Committee has demanded that the Kerala Government
> immediately notify the withdrawal of these projects.
>
> The Committee Chairman, Mr. Abraham Benhur, and
> General Convenor, Mr. Elias Paul, told a press
> conference
> here that the Government and the mafia, which comprised
>
> contractors and PWD engineers, were stepping up the
> move for five more projects in the district at a time
> when
> the Banasura Sagar and the Karapuzha irrigation
> projects
> were remaining incomplete even after spending over Rs.
> 450 crores and a quarter of a century.
>
> ``The only ones who benefited from these project were
> persons such as the former subcontractor for the
> Karapuzha project who now owned a thousand-acre estate
> in Wayanad and a few other officials,'' the committee
> members said. Thousands of farmers who were granted
> compensation after being evicted from the project sites
>
> decades ago were yet to receive the money.
>
> More pathetic was the plight of 465 families of
> adivasis
> evicted from the Karapuzha dam site who were not paid a
>
> penny as compensation because they did not possess any
> title deeds for the lands they had lived on.
>
> The loss of agricultural revenue to the State exchequer
> in
> the last 25 years from the fallowed sites of Banasura
> Sagar
> and the Karapuzha dams would amount to at least Rs. 600
>
> crores, they said. This amount alone could have
> provided
> much-needed drinking water facilities, primary
> healthcare
> and resettlement houses in the tribal areas in the 24
> panchayats in Wayanad.
>
> The committee said the five projects proposed to come
> up
> across the Manathavady river, Chundelipuzha,
> Kallampathy
> river, Kadamanthodu and Noolpuzha river would together
> submerge 10 per cent of the 2,126-sq km land mass of
> the
> district.
>
> These and the other projects commissioned/proposed in
> neighbouring Karnataka (Kabini, Beechanahalli, Nooku,
> Tharaka and Krishanarajasagar) and Tamil Nadu
> (Pandiar-Punnappuzha project) would make Wayanad
> prone to earthquakes, besides destroying much of the
> valuable biodiversity of the Neelagiri Biosphere
> Reserve
> (NBR), one of the 18 biodiversity hotspots in the
> world, the
> committee members pointed out.
>
>