Law Ministry's opinion sought on implementation of the award

With the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) taking effect on the date of its publication in the gazette (February 19), the Union Ministry of Water Resources has sought the Law Ministry’s opinion on how to implement it till the formation of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB).

Though setting up the Board is mandatory, it will take a long time as the process has to start from scratch and needs the approval of the Union Cabinet. So, the Ministry has sought the legal opinion on the mechanism to be adopted to implement the final award till the formation of the Board, sources in the Ministry told Deccan Herald.

The Ministry is planning to give the responsibility of implementing the final award to the Central Water Commission as an interim arrangement, but it wants some clarity from the Law Ministry on this issue, sources said.

With the Cauvery River Authority and Cauvery Monitoring Committee, which was set up to implement the Tribunal’s interim award, ceasing to exist soon after the notification of the final award, Tamil Nadu is pressing for early setting up of the Board as there are only a few months to go for the water year to begin (June 1 of every year). However, Karnataka has opposed any move to set up the Board.

However, the Ministry has clarified that the gazette notification clearly states that setting up the CMB to oversee the implementation of the final award is mandatory and there is no ambiguity on it.

Clause XVII of the notification makes it binding on the government to take note of “all such orders, directions, recommendations, suggestions, etc., which have been detailed in different chapters/volumes of the report with decision for appropriate action.” This means that all observations and recommendations made in all chapters of the Tribunal award are binding on the government. This also includes setting up the CMB and its sub-committee, the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, said the sources.  

An official in the Ministry said that the Tribunal itself had said, “We recommend that a Cauvery Management Board on the lines of the Bhakra Beas Management Board may be constituted by the Central government. In our opinion, the necessity of setting up a suitable mechanism is of utmost importance and without an implementation mechanism in place, the final award, to quote the Tribunal’s words, “would only remain on a piece of paper.”

Tamil Nadu also pleaded the Centre that Karnataka should not be allowed to use flows during summer, referring to one of the clauses in the final order which states that there has to be an effective storage of a minimum of 3 tmc feet of water in all the reservoirs on June 1 (the first day of the water year), including the storage of water carried over from the previous water year.