Hogenakal in Karnataka

There has been considerable news coverage in the English media on the Hogenakal row for the past couple of days. But as usual the news reports by the English newspapers and channels have not provided enough space and time for the issue at large and ended up spending most of the space and time on film personalities and their phoney protests.

Mainstream English media has not really provided enough opportunities for Kannadigas to put across their views. Hence putting across a few points that have been carefully missed out by the mainstream English media.

1. Tamilnadu planned to use the current situation of Karnataka being under President's rule to go ahead with the Hogenakal project. As usual, the spineless Karnataka politicians from the national parties were not concerned about this issue and were busy shortlisting candidates for the assembly elections.
2. It was only because of the vigilance of the Kannada media and the strong agitation by Kannada organizations that enough pressure was created on the Central Government and the Tamilnadu Government. It was only when the situation was getting out of control that Karunanidhi backtracked on his misadventure. Tamilnadu has now put this project on hold until elections to the Karnataka assembly are over.
3. Hogenakal area is a part of Karnataka. Since Tamilnadu has been disputing this, Karnataka and the Central government had agreed to a joint survey. But Tamilnadu has not been co-operating on the survey as they know that as per the revenue records, Hogenakal is a part of Karnataka. Therefore, Tamilnadu government should not go ahead with the project in a geographical area which is part of Karnataka but it claims as disputed.
4. While it has been agreed upon that any project undertaken in the Kaveri basin areas will need mutual consent apart from the Central government, Tamilnadu government has blatantly been exhibiting hypocrisy in this matter. It has earlier objected to every project in the Kaveri basin proposed by Karnataka by having gone to the extent of writing to the Japanese agencies (who were funding the drinking water project for Bengaluru) objecting the Kaveri (Cauvery) drinking water project for Bengaluru. However for the Hogenakal project, Tamilnadu has gone ahead without even providing Karnataka any details of the project. They even expect co-operation from Karnataka in this matter! Co-operation is not a one-way street, right?
5. DMK and allies are an important part of the UPA alliance. These parties have perfected the art of blackmailing the Union Government into accepting unreasonable demands without ever thinking about the impact of their actions on the federal nature of India. Using the blackmailing tactics, Tamil Nadu has influenced the Central Government against Karnataka on multiple occasions. Nothing new with the Hogenakal project either!

Hogenakal, Stanley, and Dharmapuri?

Having mentioned all these fine details about the whole scene created by Tamilnadu, it would make much sense to digress a little, say 45-50kms from the place of this scene. One finds that there already stands a Stanley reservoir in Mettur, spread on a sprawling area much bigger than the Krishna Raja Sagara reservoir, which is humbled in front of the former's watery expanse. With this bigger reservoir already standing so close to Dharmapuri district, why, with all the urgency, is Tamilnadu so charged up to feed its citizens with drinking water from the Hogenakal falls? Won't it make much more economic sense for it to pursue a much cheaper project to connect Stanley to Dharmapuri? Question no one raised before, you say?