Tribunal to meet on Sept 19 on Cauvery issue

After a gap of almost nine years, the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will meet here on Wednesday to discuss the dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the sharing of the river water.

The much-awaited meeting has been scheduled by the UPA government for the first time since it came to power in 2004 after the Supreme Court, while hearing a petition by the Tamil Nadu government recently, pulled up the Prime Minister’s Office for its failure to hold discussions.

The meeting assumes significance because the Karnataka government’s “goodwill gesture” of releasing 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery water everyday ends on Wednesday.

The meeting is expected to be a stormy affair as it will discuss Tamil Nadu’s demand for immediate release of water by Karnataka and a long-lasting solution to the vexed issue.

An all-party meeting convened by Karnataka government recently had resolved to urge the CRA to evolve a distress formula for sharing of Cauvery water with Tamil Nadu and other riparian states based on ground realities .

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha is expected to be present at the meeting to be attended by Kerala, another riparian state, and union territory of Puducherry besides Karnataka.

The CRA was set up in 1997 to ensure the implementation of the interim order of Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal which, in 2007, allocated 419 billion cubic feet of water annually to Tamil Nadu and 270 billion cubic feet to Karnataka, 30 billion cubic feet to Kerala and 7 billion cubic feet to Pudducherry.

Karnataka has maintained that the interim award was not “scientific” and was inherently flawed. Nevertheless, it complied with the order except during 1995–96 when rains failed.