Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jun 17: The environmentalists are planning to challenge the National Green Tribunal's (NGT) order that has given green signal to the Yettinahole project that plans to provide drinking water to parched districts of Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Bengaluru rural etc, in the Supreme Court (SC).

Petitions filed in NGT by Kishore Kumar and Somashekhar, which had pointed out that the said project is detrimental to the interests of Western Ghats, Malnad and coastal regions of the state, have been dismissed. They had questioned the rationale behind the permission accorded by forest department to the project.

The state government had argued before the NGT that Yettinahole is purely a drinking water project which aims at providing water to Chikkaballapur, Bengaluru rural, Ramanagara and Tumakuru districts. The government had also executed a bond not to use the water for hydel power projects or irrigation.

The concerned, who have not lost heart at the setback they faced at the NGT, have decided to approach the Supreme Court. Kishore Kumar said that more evidences are being put together and the appeal is planned to be filed in SC during July this year. Somashekhar said that Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Ltd is squandering money in the name of execution of this project. He said that the government had falsely told the NGT that this is an exclusively drinking water project.

In the meanwhile, the case filed in NGT by Purushotham Chitrapur against Yettinahole project is still pending.