TN approaches SC seeking more water from Karnataka

Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking a direction to Karnataka to release 12 tmc ft of Cauvery river water to save its standing samba crops and to provide drinking water to the people in the state.

In its application, Tamil Nadu claimed that the Cauvery Monitoring Committee, in its January 4 meeting, had failed to issue any directions to Karnataka despite noting a shortfall of 31.4  tmc ft in Tamil Nadu as per the interim award of Cauvery River Water Dispute Tribunal.

 “The Committee has committed a gross error in observing that Karnataka is not required to release any more water since Mettur has already received 1.6 tmc ft for the month of January 2013,” stated the application drawn by advocate G Umapathy.

‘Excessive’

Tamil Nadu has also termed as “excessive,” the assessment made by the Central team in
its October fact-finding mission, which concluded that Karnataka alone needed 23 tmc ft water to satisfy the drinking water needs of its residents.

“The state of Karnataka, in an unjustified manner, is making demands for further waters which is wholly unsustainable. On the other hand, the state of Tamil Nadu has suffered the most and has lost the Kuruvai crop and is on the verge of losing the samba crop for want of adequate releases,” the application stated.

It added that Karnataka had an effective storage of 16 tmc ft with further anticipated flows between January and May, 2013.

Tamil Nadu also claimed Karnataka had irrigated about 12.75 lakh acres, which was much more than the area permitted by the Tribunal.

The water requirement provided under the four reservoirs in Karnataka is 103.2 tmc ft. “In the present year of distress, it had already drawn 122 tmc ft of water as on January 4, while the average drawal from the four reservoirs during the past 32 years has only been about 114 tmc ft,” the application stated.