TN contests Karnataka's claim

Tamil Nadu on Wednesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court seeking to contradict the contentions made by Karnataka pleading for stay of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) order.

Contesting the contention of Karnataka that Tamil Nadu required 120 tmc of water from the reservoirs of the state (Tamil Nadu’s dams), Tamil Nadu said it actually required 149 tmc for the samba crop alone.

It said Karnataka required a mere 3.3 tmc more water from now on. Unlike earlier years, Karnataka did not cultivate its entire area under kharif this season because of drought. While the upper riparian state required 96 tmc for kharif, it had drawn most of the water for
the crop already.

It contended that Karnataka kept changing the figure for its requirement from time to time. Once it said it required 157 tmc and later changed it to 140 tmc.

At Mettur dam, the storage was only 34 tmc of which five tmc was dead storage and five tmc was required for drinking water purposes. It showed that there was contradiction in its own requirement of quantum of water, Tamil Nadu said. Tamil Nadu demanded that Karnataka should be directed to release 47 tmc at the rate of two tmc of water every day.