Centre to seek legal opinion on Cauvery board

K'taka MPs asked Uma Bharti not to take hasty decision on the issue

With Karnataka strongly opposing the Centre’s reported move to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), the Ministry of Water Resources on Monday decided to seek legal opinion before taking any decision on the issue.

“The Ministry of Water Resources will seek the opinion from Ministry of Law before setting up the CMB”, the sources told Deccan Herald here. This development came after a delegation of the BJP MPs from Karnataka met Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti here on Monday and urged her not to take any hasty decision on the issue.

A delegation of Karnataka BJP MPs led by Union Fertiliser Minister Anant Kumar, Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda and Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation G M Siddeshwara and BJP president Prahlad Joshi met  Bharti here on Monday.

In the meeting, in which officials of the Water Resources Ministry were also present, she reportedly said the ministry would not take any hasty decision on the inter-state water dispute issue and promised to protect the interest, of both the states.

She also promised the state leaders that issues raised by Karnataka leaders would be brought to the notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

During the meeting, the State leaders said since civil appeals against the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal is pending in the Supreme Court, the ministry shouldn’t form CMB.

An all-party delegation led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will meet Modi and  Bharti on Tuesday to oppose any move by the Centre to constitute the Board.

While Tamil Nadu is demanding early constitution of the Board as per the Cauvery Dispute Tribunal verdict, Karnataka opposed this saying existing system of Cauvery Supervisory Committee headed by Union Water Resources Board is sufficient to monitor release of water by upper riparian state to lower riparian states.

Issue of setting up the Board, which will have power to control and regulate release of water from all reservoirs in Cauvery basin, is pending in the Supreme Court.