Ryots represent against LBP concretisation project to Duraimurugan

Many leaders of various ryots associations, led by DMK environment wing state secretary Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, met water resources minister Duraimurugan at his residence at Chennai and represented against the proposed cincretisation project in the Lower Bhavani Project main irrigation canal and its branch canals by submitting a resolution passed at the mega farmers convention held at Perundurai last Sunday.

 The association leaders KR Sudantararasu and EVK Shanmugam said that the convention highlight various drawbacks in the Rs 710 cr project and adopted a resolution that if the project was carried out, hundreds of villages in the district would face acute drinking water shortage as the project would arrest seepage and percolation of water from the earthern canal. 

So,  already, over 50 village panchayats adopted a resolution against the project. Some ryots created an impression against those who opposed the project as  ''thieves of LBP canal water and illegally used the water''. But, in reality, while the LBP's 1.035 lakh acre get water for wet crops for 4 months, another 1.035 lakh acre would get water for dry crops for just 120 days. 

So, a farmer could get water for dry or wet crops once in 2 years only.  Under the present situation, the seepage of water improves ground water which saves the standing crops durperiod when water was not released in the canal.  So, they opposed the project. Just like the LBP canal and dam, which were built 70 years back, Kallanai (grand anaicut) and its canals were built nearly 2000 years back. But,  the Kallanai canals were still strong. So, how can LBP canal and dam could become weak, they asked. The concretisation project would make the LBP ayacut as desert in future and help only contractors, officials and  politicians.  From the inception of the canal, no desilting work was done by PWD. 

Only, some NGOs did it in few places. If it is done in needy places, water would easily reach tail end areas, they said. Above all, the project would lead to felling down of thousands of trees on the banks of LBP canal. It would lead to extinction of thousands of birds coming to the ayacut and Vellodu bird sanctuary. They eat anti crop insects, moths etc. If the trees were removed, the birds would not come affecting the ecology and crop system in the LBP ayacut. It would became a major environment impact in the region when all speak on climate change and need to protect the environment. 

In simple word, the project would create another Parambikulam Aliyaru Project (PAP) where a ryot could get water once in 4 years, they feared adding that till date,the full  project details were not given to the ryots, despite they sought it many times and their doubts were not yet clarified by PWD officials.  The minister, however, asked them to suggest weak areas of the LBP canal bunds to concertise that stretch alone to check  breaks in it by visiting the canal before May 8 as already the World Bank loan was obtained and interest for it has to be remitted.  If the ryots continued to oppose the project, the loan amount would be returned, he added.

 In the monthly farmers grievance redressal meeting also, held on Wednesday at the Collectorate, many ryots opposed the project and it led to a wordy duel between the ryots supporting and opposing the project. When those who supported the project opposed others for speaking on the issue in the forum, pandemonium prevailed for many minutes in the forum as the those opposing the project strongly condemned the supporters of the project.