Bengaluru, Sep 25 (TIWN) The two mega drinking water projects planned by successive governments, the Ettinahole and the Mekedatu project, will prove to be a death warrant for the last remaining animal habitats in Karnataka's Western Ghats and the Cauvery Sanctuary.

Environmentalists have warned that the sinking of 12,000 acres of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ettinahole project will strike the very heart of the Western Ghats.  However, opposition Congress has declared it as a mission to implement the Mekedatu project for providing drinking water to Bengaluru and the surrounding areas.

The Congress state President D.K. Shivakumar has repeatedly stated that the implementation of the Mekedatu project was inevitable and as soon as his party comes to power it will be implemented without any further delay. 

The Ettinahiole project involving the diversion of rivers was mooted by the BJP government headed by former CM D.V. Sadananda Gowda. “Both projects will destroy the core area and heighten the man-human conflict,” explains retired senior bureaucrat and environmentalist Dr A.N. Yallappa Reddy.