Even as the Cauvery Supervisory Committee is scheduled to meet in New Delhi tomorrow to decide on the quantum of river water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states, anxiety prevails in Karnataka over its outcome.
Security has been beefed up in Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Mysuru, Bengaluru and other parts of the state ahead of the meeting, police said.
"The police, ahead of crucial Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting tomorrow, have taken necessary security steps to check any untoward incident," IGP (Central Range) Seemanth Kumar told reporters here.
Supreme Court on September 15 had taken Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments to task for failing to check violence following its order on the Cauvery dispute, asserting that its verdict "has to be complied with" and violent agitation would serve no purpose as those aggrieved were free to take legal recourse.
The apex court also had directed both states to ensure that there is no violence, agitation, destruction and damage to property following its order and asked them to maintain peace, calm and dignity for law.
Property worth several crore has been damaged in violence in the two states after the Supreme Court order. Kumar said RAF and BSF platoons will be deployed in Bengaluru Rural and Kolar districts which share borders with Tamil Nadu. Police would be deployed on national highways to check traffic disruptions likely to be made by pro-Kannada outfits in next two days.
Yesterday, Kannada Okkuta Leader Vatal Nagaraj had threatened to disrupt vehicles at Attibele near Hosur, which falls in Tamil Nadu, tomorrow and the day after.
Kumar said police has taken miscreants into preventive custody and is in talks with leaders belonging to political parties and pro-Kannada groups. Meanwhile, the Committee, which is meeting to decide on the quantum of water to be released, is analysing the data given by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
A source said Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have submitted data to the committee about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas.
The panel, which has to take a decision on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and other states, had sought the information from them in its last meeting on September 12.
The Committee is headed by the Union Water Resources Secretary with Chief Secretaries of the Cauvery basin states (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala) as members.
The Chairman of the Central Water Commission is also be a member, while the Chief Engineer of the CWC will be the Member-Secretary. In an interim order on September 5, Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for next 10 days to Tamil Nadu, leading to protests in parts of Karnataka.
The apex court had also asked Tamil Nadu government to approach the committee to decide on the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states after the period of 10 days was over.
However, under pressure following the protests, the Karnataka government approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of the interim order.
Hearing the plea, the Supreme Court then amended its order, directing the state to release a reduced quantum of 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu till September 20.
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