The Korean government is establishing water supply systems in the villages of Phalia, Mandi Bahauddin with a grant of US$4 million.

Around 80,000 population of that area will be beneficiary of the project. Underground water of the region has been contaminated by the effluent of sugar mills in Phalia to cause health issues to the local population and huge damage to the environment conditions.

Charging Karnataka with “unjustly utilising” Cauvery water for summer irrigation, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, today asked the Prime Minister, Dr Manmhohan Singh, to convene a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority to discuss the issue.

Karnataka has been “unjustly utilising” the water for summer irrigation from February to May by depleting the storage in its four major reservoirs, she said in a letter to Dr Singh.

Reservoirs' storage

JAMMU: The residents of J K Colony Paloura Top near here have expressed their anguish and resentment against the PHE Department which has failed to construct a protection wall around the water reservoir in Paloura whose existence is in danger as the same is lying in a precarious condition after the digging of land and collapse of its side wall.

Supreme Court lawyer and anti-corruption activist Prashant Bhushan has said the Maheshwar dam project, the country's first privately-financed hydropower project, mired in financial irregularities, is unviable.

Mr. Bhushan was addressing in Maheshwar on Sunday a rally, taken out by oustees of the project against the recent decision of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) allowing raising the water level in the reservoir up to 154 metres.

Although Pakistan has opened up its borders for enhanced trade with India, water disputes remain unresolved which several analysts, including US officials as noted in Wikileaks, believe may well be the reason for a war between the two countries.

India has already announced it would complete 330-megawatt Kishanganga hydroelectric project by 2014 despite the fact that the issue is pending in the International Court of Arbitration (ICA)/ neutral expert at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Member of the Supreme Court appointed Empowered Committee on Mullaperiyar Dam Justice K.T. Thomas on Thursday said it was unfortunate that some quarters had sought to politicise and whip up emotions on the panel's report, instead of looking at it rationally.

"Those who are finding fault with the report are doing so without understanding its contents fully.In a matter like this emotion should not get precedence over reason," Justice Thomas, the nominee of Kerala on the panel, told agencies.

When completed, it will be India’s largest lift-irrigation project, boasting of the longest gravity canals, aqua-ducts and tunnel systems, spanning some 1,055 km. More than that, the Rs 40,000 crore Pranahita-Chevella project is being touted as the solution to all the problems of perennially parched Telangana: It is expected to irrigate nearly 17 lakh acres of cultivable land, which is currently at the mercy of monsoon, and provide drinking water to over a dozen towns and cities, including Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

At a time when the State is reeling under severe drought conditions, about 4,000 cusecs of water gets wasted everyday at the Basavasagara reservoir in Narayanapura due to the lack of maintenance of the reservoir.

The reservoir, which helps irrigate 10 lakh acres of land, has an inflow of about 10,000 cusec of water everyday. Of this, only 6,000 cusec reach the agricultural lands.