Govt failed to get FAC okay for Yettinahole project: Petitioner

New Delhi, Aug 22: A petitioner opposing the Yettinahole drinking water project near Sakleshpur informed the National Green Tribunal on Monday that the Karnataka government failed to obtain mandatory Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) approval since it was an irrigation project and required large scale diversion of forest land.

Advocate Ritwick Dutta representing petitioner K N Somashekhar said before the NGT bench headed by Justice Javed Rahim that though the state government claimed that it is a drinking water project, in reality it is a minor irrigation project where water will be drawn from the Western Ghats and diverted to fill the lakes in Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts.

Besides, the project required the approval of the FAC and not the Regional Forest Experts committee as claimed by the state government, he said.

Alleging that the entire project report prepared by the state government was flawed, the advocate said the Sakleshpur region of the Western Ghats did not have sufficient water as projected by the state government.

The advocate also said that according to the Kasturirangan report, no major irrigation project should come up in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. If the current project comes up in region, it would be a big threat to the ecology of the Western Ghats, he said.

The bench allowed the Karnataka government to make its arguments on September 12 and 13.