Appeal to all concerned groups to name the campaign against our river diversion as 'Campaign against Nethravathi River Diversion Project' and ignore / not use any other names given by the government for the project designed to mislead the people of Dakshina Kannada District: Nethravathi River Diversion Project -- the doomsday project for the very source of River Nethravathi - the lifeline of Dakshina Kannada District in the Western Ghats has been widely criticized by the people of Dakshina Kannada and environmentalists across the nation, primarily on the damages the project would cause to the sensitive eco-system of the Western Ghats due to the Inter-basin transfer of river flow from West to East. Seeing the widespread opposition by the people of Dakshina Kannada District to the above project, the government quickly changed the project name to 'Yettinahole Diversion Project'. Yettinahole - one of the major tributaries of River Nethravathi, is unfamiliar to the people of Dakshina Kannada District, both in terms of its name and location. This substantially diluted the ongoing campaign against the Nethravathi River Diversion Project in Dakshina Kannada. Later, as the campaigners tried to bring in public awareness that 'Yettinahole is in fact a major tributary to the River Nethravathi and the project is in fact Diversion of River Nethravathi'. The government once again changed the project title to 'Scheme for Diversion of Flood Water from Sakleshpura (West) to Kolar/Chikkaballapura (East) - 24.01 TMC'. This title was designed to further mislead that the people of Dakshina Kannada District will not be affected by the project, making it seem that the river diversion project is limited to Sakleshpura Taluk and the coastal people need not be concerned about it. Highly placed sources in the government have confirmed this will be the first of the tributaries to be diverted from the catchment of River Nethravathi there will be many more to follow. The silence of the elected representatives from Dakshina Kannada even to voice a formal objection to this disastrous project has further fuelled the anger of the coastal people. Kudremukh Wildlife Foundation has overlayed the exact locations of the proposed dams from the Project Report on Google Earth clearly showing the location of the dams and the project within the Catchment of River Nethravathi, to provide factual information to the people of Dakshina Kannada as to how the government is planning to kill the very source of River Nethravathi -- the lifeline of Dakshina Kannada District. Kudremukh Wildlife Foundation intends to release a series of graphical images during the campaign depicting the damages intended by the government to the source of River Nethravathi. We appeal to all concerned groups to name the campaign against our river diversion as 'Campaign against Nethravathi River Diversion Project' and ignore / not use any other names in the media and other campaigns frequently changed by the government to mislead the coastal people of Dakshina Kannada District.

• published: 03 Oct 2013
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