Mangaluru, Oct 3: Veteran Congress leader B Janardhan Poojary informed that he had paid a visit to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi to notify her of the adverse impact of Yettinahole project taken up by the Congress-led state government in Karnataka and urged her to take action to stop the project after discussing the matter with her in detail.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, he reiterated that it was clear from the initial findings of a scientific study that the project would cause widespread and irreparable damage to the Western Ghats and posed a serious threat to the Nethravati river.
He urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to allot time in the Cabinet to seriously debate over the impact on the environment from the project. “I have been reiterating that the people of Kolar, Tumkur and Chikkaballpur districts, the beneficiaries of the project, will be cheated of their rights. The project is a gross injustice to the people of coastal Karnataka as well as the beneficiaries,” he said, criticising the CM and state forests minister for their unflinching stance on the project.
The Ministry of Forests and Environment has not understood the gravity of the situation and the impact on the environment from the project. With complete disregard to the mentioned scientific study, the state government has gone ahead with the project. The CM should mull over a permanent solution to the water problem in the parched districts of Kolar, Tumkur and Chikkaballapur, he said, adding that the ministers who supported the project lacked political will.
He also criticised union law minister and former Karnataka chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda for trying to cheat the people of coastal Karnataka of their rights.
Lashing at the local MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, he said that the MP had announced a protest rally against the Yettinahole project. Instead of this, he should approach the PM in Delhi with other ministers and urge him to halt the project immediately. He should lead a rally to Delhi instead, he pointed.
“It is a tragedy that the state government is going ahead with the project despite resistance. Only the central government can stop it now,” he stressed.
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