Accusing the Karnataka government and Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar of failing to protect the interests of the State with respect to the Cauvery, Deputy Leader of the Opposition Arvind Bellad on Wednesday remarked that the State should learn from Tamil Nadu on protecting its share of water as well as its farmers during distress.

Participating in a debate in the Assembly on drought, Mr. Bellad argued that the fact that Karnataka was repeatedly asked by the Cauvery authorities to release water to Tamil Nadu was a clear indication of the “failure” of the Karnataka government to present its case strongly.

Though Tamil Nadu exceeded the geographical area for cultivation of crops allocated to it in its Cauvery command region, Karnataka failed to highlight this before the Cauvery monitoring authorities or the Supreme Court, he alleged.

“Despite lacking political experience, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay managed to protect the interests of his farmers unlike his Karnataka counterpart. From the beginning, the Karnataka Chief Minister stuck to the stand that our farmers should not cultivate crops in command region owing to poor storage in the Cauvery reservoirs. On the contrary, Mr. Vijay told his farmers that he would get them water to cultivate two crops and commenced the release of water too. He paid a compensation of ₹134 crore to farmers for the delay in the release of water,” he said.

Mr. Vijay is also providing 18 hours of three-phase power supply to his farmers to help operate IP sets unlike Karnataka where farmers are not even getting one hour of uninterrupted three-phase power, he claimed.

Slamming Mr. Shivakumar, who had undertaken a padayatra soon after COVID-19 to create awareness about the need to implement the Mekedatu balancing reservoir project, Mr. Bellad said no concrete progress had been made with respect to the project though Mr. Shivakumar had become Chief Minister now.

He accused the State government of failing to take up any precautionary measures to handle drought though it had been alerted about it four months ago by the IMD. “The Chief Minister did not even appoint an Agriculture Minister in the first phase of ministry formation,” he said.

“The Chief Minister showed interest in taking up tunnel road project at a cost of ₹28,000 crore. But he did not show similar interest in protecting the interests of farmers by taking up drought relief measures. He has time for Gautam Adani, but not for farmers,” he alleged.

Pointing out that 70% of the state’s population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood, Mr. Bellad expressed concern that drought was bound to affect rural economy which in turn would affect the state’s economy.

He said the allocation of ₹ 25 crore for fodder purchase would translate into a paltry ₹ 28.73 paise per farmer while the drought relief of ₹ 117 crore for the State would turnout to be a mere ₹ 134 per farmer.