Will move apex court again on Cauvery water: Jayalalithaa

Tamil Nadu will again approach the Supreme Court to get its due share of Cauvery river water from Karnataka as the award of the Cauvery River Authority was unacceptable, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said here Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters here after attending the authority's meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence, Jayalalithaa said: "The chairman of CRA, the prime minister, gave his ruling or award. The prime minister said that Karnataka should relaease 9,000 cueces of water per day from Sep 20 to Oct 15."

She said even this was not acceptable for Karnataka and the state through out the meeting flatly said that it could not release any water to Tamil Nadu. She said the final award of the prime minster was not acceptable to Tamil Nadu as well. So, I registered our protest on behalf of Tamil Nadu.

Jayalalithaa said she registered her protest against the prime minister's award of 9,000 cuesecs of water per day. According to her, Tamil Nadu was left with no other alternative but to move the Supreme Court again.

"We will approach Supreme Court again for justice to get our share of water," Jayalalithaa said. She said even the states' request for the bare minimum supply of water was not accepted.

Jayalalithaa said crop on 1.5 million acres needed to be saved with at least two thousand million cubic (tmc) feet of water for 24 days which was not acceptable to Karnataka. Jayalalithaa said she was totally disappointed at the outcome of the CRA meeting.

Jayalalithaa said she also demanded a decision on a distress-sharing formula for sharing of Cauvery waters but there was no consensus. The meeting, chaired by Singh, was attended by Jayalalithaa, Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, Puducherry Chief Minister N. Rangasamy and Kerala Water Resources Minister P.J. Joseph, sources in the prime minister's office told IANS.

According to sources, Jayalalithaa had written to the central government in May seeking a meeting of the CRA. The state demanded that Karnataka release water from the Cauvery to save Tamil Nadu's standing crops.

The last meeting of the CRA was held in 2003 when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power at the centre. The Supreme Court earlier this month expressed its displeasure that the prime minister's office had not fixed a date for the CRA meeting.

Tamil Nadu had made a plea to the apex court for a direction to the central government to convene the CRA to approve a "distress-sharing formula" evolved by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee for sharing the river water.