RailEnquiry

Chennai : Hundreds of farmers courted arrest in five Cauvery Delta districts of Tamil Nadu on Thursday, picketing trains urging Karnataka to release at least two tmcft  of the river water daily to save the present ‘Samba’ (long-term) paddy crop, even as a Central Water Resources Ministry team visited the State to acquaint with the ground situation.The top-level Central team led by the Union Water Resources Secretary D V Singh, who had an hour-long discussion with State officials at the Secretariat here, including Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi and PWD Secretary Saikumar, appraised themselves of the present “water requirements” of Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) meet in Delhi on October 8. They are slated to hold similar talks with Karnataka officials in Bangalore tomorrow. After the hour-long meeting, Singh told the media that the team will visit Karnataka also and submit a report to the CMC in four days. It was later learnt that Tamil Nadu officials presented a detailed report on the ‘Kharif’ and ‘Rabi’ crop losses in the State this year so far due to the non-release of Cauvery water by the upper riparian Karnataka State.