Convene River Board meeting, says MP

Vellore MP Abdul Rahman has appealed to the Tamil Nadu PWD Minister to convene the Palar and Tamirabarani River Basin Management and Development Board meeting, as after constituting the board in 2001, the State government had not convened a meeting since 2003.

In a recent letter sent to the minister, who is also the chairman of the board, Rahman pointed out that the government of Tamil Nadu, in its order dated January 12, 2001, had constituted the River Management and Development Board, initially focusing on Palar and Tamirabarani rivers in the State, towards integrated development of water and land resources of these basins.

The MPs and MLAs representing these two basins were included in the committee as members in addition to senior officials attached to the departments of finance, water resources, agriculture, rural development, industries, environment and forests. The board’s objective was to focus on sustainable use of water for irrigation, agriculture, horticulture, soil conservation, pollution, domestic water supply, fisheries, water supply to industries, power generation, watershed development, forests, recreation and tourism and public health.

While ground water extraction was an issue in both basins, with about 16 per cent of the blocks in the Palar basin and 5 per cent of blocks in Tamirabarani basin declared as dark (over exploited), Palar had an additional issue of pollution issues caused by tanneries. “Since I represent the Vellore constituency, I am worried about Palar basin, hence I request you to convene the meeting of the board,” he reasoned.

There was a need to plan and implement various schemes to protect the river basins, especially the Palar, which has been facing problems of over exploitation of ground water resources and pollution of the basin. The issues need to be studied thoroughly and steps taken to reverse the ecological damage as per the direction of the Supreme Court.

Rahman pointed out that some of the schemes planned for reversal of ecological damage in Ambalur area in the upper Palar basin in the Vellore district required discussions to evolve strategies to revive the area, as a check dam planned in the village by the TWAD board had come to a halt due to various reasons.

Since the board is the decision-making authority, a meeting would set forth activities to safeguard the river basins with the active involvement of stakeholders, besides improving the livelihood of citizens of the basins, Rahman added further.