The Congress says it has a solution to quench the thirst of a parched Bengaluru — Vote for their candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha election and they will bring to fruition the Mekedatu drinking water project.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, while campaigning for the Bengaluru Lok Sabha seat, has been stressing on the importance of the project for Bengaluru’s sustainability and has appealed to people to vote for the Congress to ensure the city does not go thirsty again.
“Soumya Reddy’s victory is essential if the Mekedatu project is to be implemented,” said Siddaramaiah while campaigning for the Bengaluru South candidate who is contesting against BJP’s Tejasvi Surya. The chief minister made similar appeals when he campaigned for Mansoor Khan in Bengaluru Central LS seat, Rajeev Gowda in the Bengaluru North LS seat and DK Suresh in the Bengaluru rural seat. All these seats have been hit by the drinking water shortage and low groundwater levels in peak summer months.
Political analyst Sandeep Shastri believes the Congress has been trying to focus on local issues to shift the spotlight away from the central leadership.
“If the BJP has been taking a jibe at the Congress, asking them to settle their internal differences on Mekedatu, Siddaramaiah is making it clear that Karnataka has its own policy. They are countering the BJP by saying the Congress and DMK may be part of the same INDIA bloc but they will be taking care of the interest of their own state Karnataka,” Shastri said.
Mekedatu is a proposed multi-purpose drinking water project involving the construction of a balancing reservoir on the confluence of the rivers Cauvery and Arkavathy, situated about 100 km from Bengaluru at the Kanakapura taluka in Karnataka’s Ramanagara district. It aims to help meet the growing demand for drinking water in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. Estimated to cost around Rs 9,000 crore, Karnataka believes it can resolve the drinking water shortage in Bengaluru and Ramanagara districts.
Bengaluru has seen one of the worst droughts leading to drinking water and groundwater shortage in 100 years which has further prompted political parties like the Congress to take it up as a political issue in this Lok Sabha election campaign. When completed, the project is expected to supply over 4 TMC of water to Bengaluru city for drinking purposes.
It also aims at storing around 50 tmc ft of water by regulating water during floods and excess rainfall, while also harnessing 400 MW of renewable energy through a hydroelectricity plant.
The issue was revived during the 2019 elections when Karnataka sent a detailed plan to the Centre, saying they wanted to build the reservoir in Ramanagara, which is about 90 km from Bengaluru and close to the border with Tamil Nadu. In 2022, the party launched a five-day padyatra covering 170 km and about 15 assembly constituencies with the slogan “Namma Neeru Namma Hakku” (Our water, Our right). However, the protest was cut short owing to rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in the state. The Congress had also spoken about the project in the 2023 assembly elections.
This year, the Grand Old Party has raised the electoral pitch once again, saying the BJP did nothing to implement the Mekedatu project when it was in power.
Mekedatu is a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, just like the Cauvery water-sharing issue.
Tamil Nadu has been firm on its stand, stating that Karnataka has no right to decide on the Mekedatu project until a no-objection certificate is obtained from the other riparian states such as themselves and Kerala. According to Tamil Nadu, the documents submitted by the Karnataka government to the Central Water Commission (CEC) on why the Mekedatu project should be allowed were ‘flawed’ and “unfair”.
In 2023, under the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government, a timeline was set for the first time for the construction of the dam. Bommai, in an interview to News18, had spoken of allocating Rs 1,000 crore for Mekedatu and announced that the work would commence by the end of 2023. The project is yet to take off.
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