Constitute Cauvery boards soon, says Jaya

AIADMK leader and Chief Minister J Jayalalitha on Saturday urged the Centre to expedite the setting up of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) to give effect to the provisions of the Cauvery Disputes Tribunal’s Final Award to share the river waters among basin states including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

With the Centre notifying the final award in the Government of India Gazette on February 19, “it is now its (Centre’s) duty to quickly set up these two bodies, namely CMB and CWRC as stated by the Supreme Court itself,” Jayalalitha told a huge rally of farmers at Thanjavur in the heart of the Cauvery delta on Saturday evening.

Disclosing that she had already written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard, Jayalalitha said, “I hope the Centre would take steps to constitute these two bodies. Otherwise with your (people’s) support I will take legal steps to ensure the constitution of both CMB and CWRC,” she said to cheers from the crowd. The rally organised by the Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association (CDFWA) led by veteran farmer S Ranganathan and other farmers bodies was to felicitate ‘Amma’ for her sustained “legal efforts” to get the tribunal’s final award notified, bringing a glimmer of hope to the livelihood security of several lakh poor farmers in the delta region.