Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday accused the Congress-led the UPA government at the centre of not being able to take any policy decisions on important issues like Cauvery river water dispute due to internal bickerings created by its alliance partners.
In a statement here she said the Centre was suffering from policy paralysis because it could not cope with its own internal bickerings.
‘Due to this, the Centre is not looking into livelihood issues like the vexatious Cauvery river water issue’, she charged.
She also flayed the Centre for not notifying the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in the government gazette despite several pleas from her.
‘Despite several requests the Centre had not notified the 2007 final award of the tribunal in the government gazette’, she said and criticised the Centre for also not convening the Cauvery River Water Authority meeting to discuss the issue.
Ms Jayalalithaa alleged that since the government was besieged with internal squabblings created by its alliance partners, it appeared that the Centre had no time to look into the issues concerning the people.
‘Because of this, the UPA government at the Centre was hit by policy paralysis resulting in it not even being able to look at livelihood issues like the cauvery river water row”, she said.
Recalling the letter she had written to the Prime Minister in May Ms Jayalalithaa termed as unjust, Karnataka utilising the Cauvery water for summer irrigation and urged him to covene the Cauvery River Water Authority meeting.
But the Centre had not yet heeded to the request, she said.
Ms Jayalalithaa said as per the final award of the Cauvery River Water Disputes Tribunal Karnataka should release 134 tmcft of water during June-September.
The final award also prohibited Karnataka from using the water from its reservoirs for summer irrigation, she claimed. “But Karnataka had violated the final award of the Tribunal and had not released even a drop of water to Tamil Nadu”, she said, adding, since Tamil Nadu had not got its due share of water because of Karnataka utilising the water for summer irrigation, the state government had moved the Supreme Court against this on March 21 this year.
This, along with another petition, filed in April seeking a direction to the Centre to notify the final award of the Tribunal in the Government gazette was pending before the Apex Court, she said.
Asserting that her government was determined to obtain Tamil Nadu’s due share of water from Cauvery, the Chief Minister said the state government had moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Karnataka to release water on pro-rata basis and convening of the Cauvery River Authority meeting immediately.
Referring to media reports that cultivation of Kuruvai crop would be affected because of Karnataka not releasing water to the Mettur dam, Ms Jayalaithaa said scanty rainfall and non-release of water by Karnataka as per the distress period agreement, the Kuruvai crop cultivation could not be taken up in full scale.
She said considering the situation she held a review meeting to assess the situation and decided to supply three-phase power to 80,000 pumpsets in the Cauvery Delta region for 12 hours from June 12 for utilising the groundwater.
Stating that the government had released Rs 125 crore to TANGEDCO for puchase of power, the Chief Minister said due to these efforts kuruvai crop cultivation would be taken up in 1.37 lakh acres this year.
She said due to water shortage, paddy cultivation was up in three lakh acres and it would be increased by another 1.52 acrres by the end of this month. (UNI)