Will BSY live up to NK people’s expectations?

Belagavi: People of North Karnataka have a lot of expectations from newly sworn-in chief minister B S Yediyurappa.
The first task before the CM is making Suvarna Vidhana Soudha (SVS) functional across the year. People believe that Yediyurappa will do it as it was during his tenure as CM in 2010 that the government built SVS. Shifting of government offices to SVS is also a long pending demand.
A year ago, about 70 seers of different mutts of North Karnataka had protested in front of SVS demanding immediate shifting of offices to the building. Yediyurappa had supported the protest and had accused the coalition government for neglecting SVS and the demands of NK people. As he himself is the CM now, people of NK want him to fulfil the demand which he had supported earlier.
Another big task before the Yediyurappa is starting work on the Kalasa-Banduri nala projects. People expect him to take a firm decision on the issue as BJP is in power in the centre as well as in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa which have a share in Mahadayi river water.
A majority of irrigation projects in the region including the upper Krishna project’s 3rd stage, Malaprabha and Ghataprabha right and left branch canals and around 18 lift irrigation projects are either incomplete or yet to start. The projects require a huge amount of funds and it remains to be seen how Yediyurappa will allocate the money.
Announce Upper Krishna as a national project: activist
Kannada activist Ashok Chandaragi said it was the right time to launch a campaign to demand that the Upper Krishna Project is announced as a national project. “There are central guidelines that say any irrigation project that covers over 2 lakh hectares can be categorized as a national project,” he said.
“The Upper Krishna Project covers over 6 lakh hectares as the state gets around 175 tmcft of water. The project requires around Rs 82,000 crore as a huge quantity of land needs to be acquired and over 50,000 families in Belagavi and Bagalkot districts need to be rehabilitated. The coalition government sanctioned just Rs 7,000 crore for the project and if the work goes on at this pace the project will never be completes. Yediyurappa and all the 22 BJP MPs of the state should convince the Centre to announce Upper Krishna Project as a national project,” said Chandaragi.