Congress Mekedatu March Halted Due To Covid-19

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The INC in Karnataka started, a march on January 9 2021 which was meant to cover 100 km in 10 days, was halted.
The march was stopped after the Karnataka High Court had raised questions on how it could be carried out amid rising Covid-19 cases in the state.

The ‘Mekedatu march’ had been launched for implementation of a project to build a reservoir on the River Cauvery at Mekedatu near the Tamil Nadu border.
The proposed reservoir, which aims to supply drinking water to Bengaluru and surrounding regions, has been challenged in the Supreme Court by Tamil Nadu on the ground that it would eat into the state’s share of Cauvery water as adjudicated by the court in 2018.
The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, which had labelled the march the ‘Walk for Water’, has temporarily suspended it citing rising Covid-19 cases, and saying it would resume when the crisis subsided.

Mekedatu project is a proposed water reservoir by Karnataka.
The project envisages a reservoir near Ontigondlu, about 1.5 km from Mekedatu (which literally means goat’s leap) in Ramanagara district of south Karnataka at the confluence of the Cauvery and Arkavathi rivers.
Mekedatu is just 4 km from the Tamil Nadu border and about 100 km from Bengaluru.
The project has a storage capacity of 67.16 TMCF of water that would aim to supply 4.75 TMCF to Bengaluru and its surrounding areas, besides generating 400 megawatts of hydroelectric power. It is proposed to be built across an area of 5,252 hectares, including 1,869 hectares of reserve forest land.
The project will need multiple clearances from the Centre and courts as it involves the Cauvery water sharing dispute.

After the 2018 Supreme court verdict, in January 2019, the then Congress-JD(S) govt submitted a detailed project report (DPR) to the Central Water Commission and the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA).
The DPR is not yet approved. The project also needs environmental clearances since large portions of forest land will be submerged if the reservoir is built.
Environmentalists have raised concerns about this and about an elephant corridor that would be covered by the proposed reservoir.
It can only be executed with the consent of Tamil Nadu, which has already challenged it.