M B Patil against sharing Bableshwar water with Maha

Former Water Resources minister and Congress legislator M B Patil has said that Tubuchi-Bableshwar Lift Irrigation scheme was his brainchild and that he would not allow sharing its water to Jath taluk in Maharashtra.

Reacting to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s statement that the discussions were on releasing water to Jath, Patil said, “The Rs 3,600 crore lift irrigation project aims to irrigate 1.35 lakh acres in the region. The project will be completed in one-and-a-half years. We will not allow sharing its water to Jath.”

The chief minister should safeguard the interests of the state first.

Yediyurappa is clueless about the project and its objective. He has just read the speech written by someone, Patil chided.

“There is nothing wrong with sharing water with Jath, which has the highest number of Kannada-speaking population. But for that, the government should formulate a fresh project, and the Maharashtra government should bear the costs of the project,” he suggested.