Jaya asks PM to firm up Cauvery distress pact

In her second letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithahas urged the Congress leader to take a decision on the “distress sharing formula” to be adopted this year in Karnataka.

If the formula comes into force, Karnataka will have to release the Cauvery water for irrigation to Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, the AIADMK leader had dispatched a letter requesting the prime minister to urgently convene a meeting of the “Cauvery River Authority (CRA)” to decide on some specific water-sharing issues in the wake of a deficient South-West Monsoon rain this year.

Pointing out that Karnataka had not released any water from its reservoirs during the irrigation year 2012-13 so far, the Tamil Nadu chief minister said the Mettur Dam in Tamil Nadu could not be opened till date for delta irrigation “due to the Karnataka government’s reluctance even to share minimum inflows.”

‘Violation of rules’

As against 95.480 tmcft of Cauvery waters that should have been released at Mettur Dam as on August 23 this year, as per the Tribunal’s Interim Order, only a meager quantity of 9.187 tmcft has been released, she said.

Going by the “distress sharing formula” evolved by the Central Water Commission, at least 43.837 tmcft of the Cauvery waters should have been released at Mettur till date this year, Jayalalitha further said.

The farmers in the Cauvery Delta, having “lost” their ‘Kuruvai’ (short-term) paddy crop, “are hoping to raise at lease one single “Samba” crop for their livelihood,” she pleaded. 

Reiterating her request to the prime minister to convene a meeting of the CRA, Jayalalitha further urged that the Karnataka government “may be kindly advised” to release water for raising “Samba Crop” in the the Cauvery delta areas of Tamil Nadu and to share its flows “in this distress situation.”