TN wants 2 TMC ft water at Mettur

Critical for samba crop, it says in fresh plea to SC

Tamil Nadu on Tuesday filed a fresh application in the Supreme Court seeking direction to Karnataka to ensure delivery of two TMC ft of Cauvery water at the Mettur reservoir during the current year.

“The direction for urgent release of water is absolutely necessary, so as to enable Tamil Nadu to sustain the samba crop, for which Mettur was opened on September 17, 2012, for irrigation and it requires regular inflow of two TMC ft of water till the onset of northeast monsoon, to sustain irrigation in the Cauvery Basin of Tamil Nadu,” the plea said.

The application claimed that Karnataka was “holding the downstream states to ransom by claiming all water flowing through the state as its own”.

In its plea, Tamil Nadu also sought direction for adoption of the distress sharing formula as evolved by the Central Water Commission and finalised by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee on December 4, 2009.

The Karnataka team, led by Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar had walked out of the Cauvery River Authority meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 19, saying that it was not in a position to release more water. Karnataka wanted a review of the direction to release 9,000 cusec water every day.

“The state of Karnataka declined to comply with the direction and walked out of the CRA meeting, resulting in no amicable solution to resolve the crisis in the State of Tamil Nadu,” the application said.

It pointed out that the CRA did not deliberate on the distress-sharing formula despite the opening remarks on it by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha. “It was stated that during the current year, as on September 15, 2012, as against 122.32 TMC ft of water to be ensured at Mettur Dam, as per interim order of the Tribunal, Tamil Nadu has only received 19.40 TMC ft resulting in the entire Kuruvai cultivation being lost. Even assuming that there is distress in Karnataka, the applicant state ought to have received an additional 48.50 TMC ft up to September 15, 2012, as per the distress-sharing formula devised by the CWC,” it added.