By Chandini Monnappa and Navamya Ganesh Acharya
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Farmers battling drought in India’s southern state of Karnataka state began a day-long strike on Friday to protest against the sharing of water from a river that also runs through the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.
Police urged calm with all schools and public places staying shut, as thousands of farmers and trade union members prepared to hold rallies after protests began this week in the tech hub of Bengaluru, despite a court order to share the waters.
“We will not let water from our river enter into the other state at a time when our farmlands are barren,” said T. Ramanujan, the leader of a farmers’ union in Karnataka.
With millions of farmers in both states, the dispute has become a long-standing legal battle, and the protests forced multinationals in Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, to advise employees to work from home.
The street protests followed a court order for Karnataka to release 5,000 cusecs of river water to Tamil Nadu for 15 days this month.
A cusec is a volume equivalent to one cubic foot, or 28 cubic litres, per second.
The government of Tamil Nadu says the river is a divided resource and it cannot be deprived of its rightful share of water.
“I have sown seeds but the ground is dry due to scanty rainfall and now we have shortage of supply from Cauvery river,” said S. Kumar, a 48-year-old farmer in the state’s district of Pudukkottai. “Small farmers are struggling this year.”
The Cauvery originates in the Karnataka region of Talakaveri and flows through Tamil Nadu before entering the Bay of Bengal.
(Additional reporting by VarunVyas Hebbalalu, Pravin Paramasivam; Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
