Cauvery issue: EPS demands all-party meet
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami urged the Tamil Nadu government to convene an all-party meeting immediately to discuss the Cauvery water dispute.
In a statement on Sunday, EPS said chief minister M K Stalin released water from the Mettur dam on June 12 without any planning. As many as 1.50lakh farmers initiated Kuruvai cultivation, borrowing heavily to do so.
They started cultivation on five lakh acres, he said. But crops on 3.5 lakh acres dried up due to lack of water for irrigation and farmers are now trying to salvage the remaining crops on 1.5 lakh acres using well water, he said.
The DMK government should have refrained from emptying the dam after it opened the sluices on June 12 for irrigation, pressured Karnataka to honour the Supreme Court’s order and release Tamil Nadu’s share for the months of July and August.
Instead, the state government waited until the dam was almost empty and put the blame on the Centre. If chief minister Stalin had any consideration for the delta farmers, he should have taken up the issue when he visited Karnataka for the swearing-in of the Congress government when there was copious water and urged it to order release, said EPS.
It should have laid down conditions like the AAP did, in order to participate in the INDIA alliance meeting held in Patna. Otherwise, Stalin could have refrained from participating in the meet, he said.