The Hindu - Karnataka 11.08.2009
Move to declare Upper Bhadra scheme as ‘national project’
Special Correspondent
| Such a status would result in Centre providing 90 p.c. funding for it: Basavaraj Bommai |
Bommai holds discussion with Union Water Resource Minister
Union Minister asks State Government to submit detailed proposal
GULBARGA: The State Government has moved the Union Water Resource Ministry to declare the multipurpose Upper Bhadra Project, designed to provide drinking water and irrigation facilities in the drought-prone Chitradurga, Chikmagalur, Tumkur and Kolar districts as a national project.
Disclosing this to presspersons here today, Water Resource Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the declaration of the Rs. 5,600 crore Upper Bhadra Project as a national project would result in the Union Government providing 90 per cent of the cost of the project. Only very few projects in the country are declared as national projects and now Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have submitted proposals for declaring some of their projects as national projects, he said.
Mr. Bommai said that during his recent visit to New Delhi, he had discussed this with the Union Water Resource Minister and the response was very encouraging. The Union Minister had asked the State Government to submit a detailed proposal and said he would give a sympathetic consideration. The Union Government declares projects as ‘national projects’ taking into consideration its importance and how it solves the persisting problems of desertification and serious drinking water problems.
Desertification
He said the command areas of Upper Bhadra is known for its fast desertification. Many villages in the area were affected by fluoride problems. More than 50 per cent of the total fluoride-affected villages in the State were in the command areas of Upper Bhadra project.
The State Government would submit a detailed project report for declaration of Upper Bhadra as national project to the Central Water Commission (CWC) once the project gets environmental clearance from the Ministry of Forests, he said. Mr. Bommai added that another area of serious concern was the salination of the arable land in the command areas of Upper Krishna and Bhima projects.
According to an estimate, more than one lakh hectares of land in the command areas of UKP and Bhima projects were affected by salination, Mr. Bommai said. So far the approach to the salination problem had been only peace meal. For the first time, the State Government had decided to tackle it seriously by involving experts in the University of Agriculture and Agriculture colleges, he said.
He added that the Government would enter into a MoU with the UAS in Dharwad and Raichur and the Agriculture College in Bijapur for preparing a detailed project report to tackle salination in the command areas of UKP and Bhima projects in Gulbarga.
