Karnataka, Tamil Nadu trade charges on Cauvery

Tamil Nadu on Monday reiterated its demand for convening the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, notifying the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award and framing of a “distress formula” to share the river water during shortage.

The demands were placed at a meeting of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) held here under the chairmanship of Union water resources secretary Dhruv Vijay Singh and attended by chief secretaries of basin states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Union Territory of Puducherry. The meeting remained inconclusive.

The CRA is chaired by the prime minister and the chief ministers of the riparian states are its members.

Tamil Nadu chief secretary Devendranath Sarangi maintained at the meeting that the state was facing water shortage and asserted that Karnataka was not releasing water.
However, his Karnataka counterpart S V Ranganath said his government was releasing water as per the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s interim award.

Karnataka was following the award in letter and spirit and that as against the Tribunal’s interim award of releasing 192 tmc ft (thousand metric cubic feet) of water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, a total of 238 tmc ft has been released so far in 2011-12 water year (which starts from July 1), Ranganath said.

Karnataka averred that this quantity of water was released at Biligundlu gauging station set up by the Central Water Commission (on the Karnataka-TN border). However, Tamil Nadu demanded that measurement of water released at Mettur, situated in Tamil Nadu, should be taken into consideration.

Tamil Nadu demanded that final award of the Tribunal — it ordered Karnataka to release 419 tmc ft to Tamil Nadu while giving 270 tmf ft to Karnataka — be notified. Karnataka also informed the meeting that the issue was pending before the Supreme Court.