Mangaluru: Neither the heat nor the brightness of the sun when it was at its highest stopped the students of three colleges and Nethravathi River Diversion project activists from protesting against Yetthinahole project taken up by the State government. The ‘Raastha Roko’ protest staged by various Dakshina Kannada pressure groups was only dispersed when the half an hour window to halt traffic was over.
More than 200 students from Besant, Canara and SDM College formed a square human chain blocking the junction in front of Deepa Comforts. The idea of blocking traffic was not to create nuisance, but make more people aware of the issue that will cause grave water problems in the district.

Leaders of pressure groups in the district got together in letting the State government know that people of this district will not go quietly into the night without a fight. Nethravathi river diversion activists Vijay Kumar Shetty, Swamy Esha Vittala, Purushotham Chitrapura, Dinakar Shetty, Dinesh Holla and others sat down on the road and shouted slogans against the project along with the students.

Head seer of Kemaru Mutt, Swamy Esha Vittala thanked the students for supporting the protest and requested them not to give up on the cause till the end. “The Yettinahole project should stop before it further destroys nature. We are already experiencing shortage of water due to diminishing rains every year. Starting from February 2017, we will surely experience a lot of water shortage even more than what we faced in 2016. Nature is taking a toll on people of the district for messing around with nature in Yettinahole,” he said.

Former MLA Vijay Kumar Shetty was agitated about the fact that the district in-charge minister was not raising any objection against the project. “Though we are conducting such protests drawing support from MLAs and MP of the district, Ramanath Rai has the responsibility of taking action against the project which is leaving our river dry. Even today as I was travelling down to Mangaluru, I noticed that the Nethravathi River has definitely no water and several places which used to be rich on water are so dry that people can play cricket there. The water problem will be evident to the district in the years to come and if this goes on, the younger generation will have a lot of problems,” Vijay Kumar said out of disappointment.

The traffic was diverted for half an hour from PVS junction coming towards Ballalbagh in order to avoid congestion during the protest. The protest was peaceful under the watchful eyes of the police personnel. Nethravathi river diversion project crusader Dinesh Holla was backed by Tulunadu Rakshana Vedike President Yogish Shetty and All College Students’ Union State President Dinakar Shetty among others.