JOIN USTamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha on Friday claimed that a memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by an all- party delegation led by her Karnataka counterpart recently ''is replete with prevarications and misleading statements'' aimed at making the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal itself ''nugatory''.
“This memorandum is replete with prevarications and misleading statements aimed at making the Final Order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal itself nugatory. This is something which I could not ignore and I am constrained to point out the trials and tribulations faced by Tamil Nadu to get its legitimate and due share of water from a recalcitrant, upper riparian State, which considers itself as having a natural superior right over all the waters of the inter-State river Cauvery,” she said in a letter to Modi.
Referring to the statement made by Union Minister for Chemicals Ananth Kumar and Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu that the Centre does not have any proposal to form Cauvery Management Board (CMB), Jayalalitha said, “In response to belligerent protests by political parties in Tamil Nadu, once again I defended you by saying that such a statement had not emanated from the Prime Minister or from the Union Minister for Water Resources”.
“I would also like to bring to your kind notice that the constitution of the CMB is not optional but an integral part of the Final Order itself, which has been notified.
Therefore, as a natural corollary and as an extension of the notification, the CMB should have been formed by the erstwhile Congress led UPA Central government,” she said adding, “however, the UPA government dragged its feet for political considerations and did not form the CMB until it demitted office.
Referring to Karnataka’s stand that Cauvery is the lifeline of its people for meeting their irrigation and domestic water needs in the drought stricken areas in the Cauvery Basin and Bangalore, Jayalalitha countered that Cauvery is also the lifeline of Tamil Nadu.
“Karnataka has been denying the due share of water year after year to Tamil Nadu and the State has been forced to approach the Supreme Court time and again to get its due and legitimate share of water,” Jayalalitha said.
With Karnataka requesting the Centre to wait the final decision of the Supreme Court in certain civil appeals before any consideration with regard to the constitution of CMB, Jayalalitha pointed out that the functioning of the pro-tem Supervisory Committee was not effective. “The pro-tem Supervisory Committee, being a temporary arrangement as observed by the Supreme Court, cannot be continued for a longer period since it would delay the implementation of the Final Order of the Tribunal.