Mangaluru : Karavali Jeevanadi  Nethravathi Rakshana Samithi, Mangaluru, which has questioned the Yettinahole diversion project in the National Green Tribunal, Southern Zone, Chennai, is determined to continue the legal battle against the project even if the Union government gave forest clearance to it.

The samithi has also decided to meet the Regional Empowered Committee, a wing of the Central Empowered Committee, when it would visit the project site tentatively on December 26, to present the case before it.

Stating this to media here on Tuesday, president of the samithi K. Vijaya Kumar Shetty, who is also former MLA, said that a delegation, comprising activists and green experts, led by Nalin Kumar Kateel, MP, met Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and Uma Bharati, Union Minister for Water Resources, in New Delhi on December 17.

It apprised the two ministers of the danger the project poses to the riparian residents of the Netravathi whose tributary Yettinahole is. The delegation requested them not to give forest clearance to the project. Mr. Shetty said Mr. Javadekar was particular about whether the project would really harm the riparian residents.

S.G. Mayya, a former professor of applied mechanics and hydraulics at the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka, Surathkal, who was part of the delegation, said that Mr. Javadekar assured the delegation that no hasty decision would be taken.

He said the delegation told the Minister that the State government was misguiding the public by projecting it as a drinking water project. But in reality it was a multi-purpose irrigation project.

Purushothama Chitrapura, Deputy Mayor, who is a member of the samithi, said that even if there was a change in the date of the Regional Empowered Committee visiting the Yettinahole project site the members of the samithi would meet it and apprise it about dangers involved in the project.

V.V. Bhat, a former IAS officer, was also part of the team which met the Ministers, he said.