The rice bowl of South India, the Cauvery Delta, has been simmering, with the gruel spilling over onto the gas-top, sometimes stoking the fire and sometimes dousing it. But the flickering tension remains because the Cauvery delta has been mapped to extract methane gas and hydrocarbon by using the method of hydraulic fracturing. The Centre’s decision to open up this fertile basin for exploration and production of natural gas to the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has triggered protests from farmers, fisherfolk and green activists.
The Union government recently awarded three new hydrocarbon blocks in the Cauvery basin to ONGC and IOCL, which have proposed to drill 20 wells in Nagapattinam, Karaikal and Ramanathapuram. And, the Union Environment Ministry has set the ball rolling for studies before issuing environment clearance to drill 104 new hydrocarbon producing wells in 16 oil and gas fields falling under 11 blocks of the Cauvery basin area.
