Privilege motion against water resources departmen minister Tatkare

NAGPUR: Going a step ahead in attack against deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and his close aide Sunil Tatkare, BJP has moved a breach of privilege motion against the latter for submitting misleading figures to the state legislature. The decision on it would be taken by council chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh this week.
Water resources minister Tatkare had submitted the white paper on irrigation in both Houses.The paper claims that the irrigation potential increased by 5.17% in last ten years. He claimed that the figure of 0.1% increase was a printing error. However, Tatkare was exposed the very next day when Vinod Tawde, leader of opposition in legislative council, produced a copy of the letter written by principal secretary (agriculture) SK Goel to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Goel has stated in the letter that irrigation figures given in two reports of water resources department (WRD) were inconsistent. In the first report the capacity has increased by 0.1%, the letter clearly states. This has exposed the claim of Tatkare and other NCP leaders that the figure of 0.1% was a printing mistake.
Tawde in his motion pointed out that the white paper claims that there was an increase of 28% in irrigation capacity created by WRD in last ten years. In 2001-02 it was 37.29 lakh hectares which increased to 48.25 lakh hectares in 2010-11. However, Goel pointed out that the figure was on the higher side because directorate of economics and statistic had included the area irrigated by wells in the command area of dams twice. The correct figure therefore was 35.46 lakh hectare.
Tawde has backed Goel's claim that figures presented by WRD were unreliable and thus the figure of 5.17% increase in irrigation capacity was incorrect, he concluded.