Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the state is not in a position to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu as there is insufficient storage in its reservoirs.
Reacting to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami's letter seeking release of Cauvery water, Siddaramaiah said, "We do not have water. How can we supply to them? It is not possible to release water to Tamil Nadu."
"I hope the Tamil Nadu government will understand the ground reality as Karnataka has not received sufficient rainfall for the past several years," he said.
Siddaramaiah was in the national capital to attend a meeting called by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
The hearing on the Cauvery water dispute is scheduled for next month. "We expect a favourable order," Siddaramaiah added.
Last week, the Supreme Court had indicated that it would deliver within a month its verdict on the decades-old Cauvery water sharing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, saying enough confusion had been created on it for over two decades.
The Tamil Nadu government earlier demanded that Karnataka release at least 15 tmcft of Cauvery water for saving its crops.
Palaniswami demanded an immediate release of 7 tmcft of water and the balance within a fortnight from the existing storage.
He said the storage in Mettur reservoir in Salem district, which caters to the Cauvery delta region, as on January 12 was a "meagre" 21.27 tmcft even as the utilisable storage there was 16.27 tmcft.
