Forest department has agreed to hand over 500 acres for Yettinahole project: Deputy CM Shivakumar

The meeting,  also attended by officials and TB Jayachandra, Karnataka government’s Special Representative in Delhi, discussed the progress of the Yettinahole and Upper Bhadra projects.

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Yettinahole project

The Yettinahole project is aimed at providing drinking water to parts of Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Tumakuru, Ramanagara and Bengaluru Urban districts by drawing 24 tmcft of water from the Yettinahole river in Sakleshpur taluk of Hassan district.

Noting that officials have identified challenges facing the projects and discussions were held regarding solutions in the meeting, Shivakumar said, “there were bottlenecks at 20 different places over a stretch of 260 km pertaining to forest land. We conducted a joint survey involving the Forest department and Revenue departments and the issue is now resolved. The work will start soon.”

A compensation of ₹51 crore needs to be given to farmers in some places, of which ₹10 crore has already been released, he said.

There are differences between the Forest and Revenue department over the compensation and this will be discussed in the Cabinet meeting.

“The balancing reservoir in Doddaballapura taluk is pending and preparations are on to start the work. In the first phase, water will be pumped to a distance of 48 km by next month. A technical committee has been formed to explore using water which is currently flowing into the sea,” he added.

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