Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya has promised to get the Mekedatu Dam Project cleared by the Centre if the ruling Congress in Karnataka can get “an NOC” from its INDIA bloc partner Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)’s Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin.
Mekedatu is fundamentally a drinking water project that Karnataka has been pressing for from the Cauvery basin to meet the dire necessity of drinking water supply to its capital, Bengaluru.
“Let the Congress-led state government get an NOC (no-objection certificate) for the Mekedatu project from the Tamil Nadu government. Since the Congress is anyway in an alliance with the DMK under the INDIA bloc, let some good come out of it. If that is done, I assure that we will get the project cleared from the union government,” Surya said in response to a question raised by News18.
On being asked about the status of the setting up of a US consulate in Bengaluru, Surya said that as per the advice of external affairs minister S Jaishankar, he spoke to United States authorities who are prepared to go ahead, if India sets up a consulate in Seattle.
“I have been following up on the proposal; now everything has been cleared from the union government side, and the ball is now in the court of the state government,” the MP said.
While Karnataka ministers have been stating that the consulate will be set up very soon, Surya claimed that as far as he knows, until two to three days ago, there was no written formal communication from the state government to the US authorities.
“The state government needs to allot land in the city and take the proposal forward,” he said.
Addressing another infrastructure issue, Surya said that the Bengaluru Suburban Rail Project (BSRP) can be fulfilled within the targeted 40 months if the Karnataka government hands over the entire venture to the Indian Railways to implement.
“The railway authorities have time and again pointed out that the quality of proposals submitted by the K-RIDE does not match the technical requirements of the railways. In fact, I strongly advocate that the BSRP should be taken out of the SPV model and handed over to the Centre. If the state government decides to do so, the central government is ready to take over and finish the project at the earliest,” the Bengaluru MP said while speaking to the media.
According to Surya, K-RIDE (Karnataka Rail Infrastructure Development Company), a special purpose vehicle between the Karnataka government and the ministry of railways, has been posing a major challenge to the progress of the BSRP, and despite the recent MoU signed by state industries minister MB Patil between K-RIDE and Luxembourg-based KFW Development Bank for funds to the tune of Rs 4,561 crore for the rail project, it seems to have been dragging its feet.
Surya also said that there were 2.2 crore beneficiaries in Bengaluru alone of all the schemes implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is why all three MPs of the BJP in Bengaluru will win by a minimum margin of 3 lakh votes each in their respective constituencies, he said.
Surya was outlining his performance and achievements over the past five-year term as an MP, with the Lok Sabha elections to be held soon.
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