No water for TN: K’taka

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 26

Tamil Nadu and Karnataka today hardened their stands on the Cauvery river water dispute as the Supreme Court is slated to hear their case tomorrow.

In its affidavit, the Karnataka Government maintained that it had no water to share with its lower riparian neighbour, while Tamil Nadu pleaded with the SC not to hear the other party till it complied with earlier court orders.

Karnataka said the Mettur dam across Cauvery in Tamil Nadu had about 45 TMC of water, while the storage was expected to go up to 90 TMC during the monsoon season, which was sufficient to take care of the standing paddy crop there. On the other hand, the Krishnaraja Sagar dam in Karnataka had storage of only 26 TMC of water, it pleaded. Nevertheless, Karnataka said it was ready to honour its commitment to Tamil Nadu gradually by the end of January 2017.

At the last hearing on September 20, the SC had directed the Centre to set up a Cauvery River Management Board within four weeks and the Karnataka Government to release 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu every day for a week.

A Bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and UU Lalit pegged Karnataka’s liability at 6,000 cusecs, which is half the quantity Karnataka has been releasing since September 12 but double the quantum recommended by the Cauvery Supervisory Committee on September 19. The Bench then asked the two state governments to file their objections to the supervisory committee’s recommendation in three days.

On September 5, the SC had directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu and subsequently reduced it to 12,000 cusecs. Despite this, large-scale violence broke out in Karnataka and sporadic incidents were reported from Tamil Nadu, prompting the Bench to take a serious view and direct the two states to ensure law and order with a heavy hand.