Jaya calls for meet on Cauvery water sharing

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha on Saturday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to convene a meeting of the “Cauvery River Authority (CRA)” to discuss the sharing of Cauvery waters.

“The CRA last met on February 20, 2003, and its meeting is long overdue,” she said in a letter to Singh, which was released to the media here.

Jayalalitha said the Centre should immediately notify in the gazette the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s final order dated Feb 5, 2007, on sharing of water between the Cauvery basin states.

But the Ministry of Water Resources said it would be appropriate to consider notification of the tribunal’s final order “once the matter is disposed of by the Supreme Court,” she pointed out.

“Karnataka is not ensuring the flows in the Cauvery as per the monthly pattern prescribed in the interim order in force or as per the final order of the tribunal in the crucial months of June to September,” Jayalalitha pointed out.

“The Karnataka government has been unjustly utilising the water for summer irrigation from February to May, which affected the flow of Cauvery water into the Mettur dam and consequently affected the Kuruvai crop badly and delayed cultivation of the samba crop in Tamil Nadu,” she said.

The interim order’s specification that Karnataka should not increase its area under irrigation beyond 11.20 lakh acres per year was another issue which required “immediate consideration” by the CRA, Jayalalitha wrote in the letter.

Speaking to reporters in Bangalore, Chief Minister D V Sandananda Gowda said he has full faith in judicary and the judgment will be in the interest of Karnataka. If situation warrants, people of Karnataka can rise above petty politics and vested interest for the sake of the State.