BJP attacks Cong govt for not spending Rs 10K crore on UKP

The BJP and the Congress crossed swords in the Legislative Council over the Upper Krishna Project (UKP), with the saffron party mounting an attack on the government for not allocating Rs 10,000 crore for the irrigation project "as promised."    

B J Puttaswamy (BJP) said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had gone to town with the slogan 'Congress nadige Krishna kadege' (Congress walks toward Krishna), and said that he had promised Rs 10,000 crore for the project every year. Former minister Basanagouda Patil Yatnal (Independent) added: "Both chief minister and (Congress state president) G Parameshwara swore on River Krishna that Rs 10,000 crore will be earmarked. What happened to this promise?"

At present, the UKP is irrigating over 6 lakh hectares of command area providing irrigation facility to dry areas of the Vijayapura district and drought-prone areas of Bagalkot, Kalaburagi, Yadgir and Raichur districts in north Karnataka.

Water Resources Minister M B Patil was livid. "We promised to allocate Rs 10,000 crore every year for all irrigation projects in the state. Accordingly, in the last four years, we have spent Rs 43,000 crore. We did not promise Rs 10,000 crore for the UKP alone," Patil said. He even summoned a copy of the Congress' 2013 manifesto to prove his point.  

BJP leaders did not relent and demanded the Council chairperson D H Shankaramurthy to earmark time for a debate on the UKP project.

Patil added that the State government had, from 2013 till December 2017, spent Rs 13,396 crore on irrigation projects in south Karnataka, Rs 12,897 crore on the UKP, Rs 1,499 crore on the Upper Bhadra project and Rs 7,113 crore on Cauvery basin projects.