Now, tribunal to settle water disputes within time frame

New Delhi, February 6

Advertisement

The Union Government is considering a proposal to amend the Interstate River Water Disputes Act to streamline the adjudication of river water disputes by constituting a tribunal that would resolve these within a time frame.

Replying to supplementaries in the Rajya Sabha, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said the issue had agitated the country and all were aware of the widespread concern over the time taken by various tribunals in giving their verdict.

Observing that the existing Act does not fix any time limit for resolving water disputes, he said the Cauvery Water Tribunal had already taken 26 years and three months and the matter was still pending before the Supreme Court.

(Follow ; and )

“We now propose under the new Act to bring all these pending disputes under a tribunal that will have a defined time frame...whereby the tribunal will give its report in four and a half years up to submission of final report,” he said. It would also be applicable to the Cauvery Tribunal, he added.

Goyal said, “For the first time, we have set a time limit for dispute redressal committees to submit their reports within 12 months (extendable by a maximum of six months). There was no time limit in the original process.”

“Whatever work the tribunals have done, the new tribunals will take the work further. It is not that the new tribunal will restart the work from the beginning. The Cauvery Tribunal issue will not have to go to a new dispute resolution committee. It will go straight to the new tribunal,” he said. “Since there is no finality on the issue, the government has to now go by the Supreme Court ruling that has come recently and the Cauvery Tribunal issue will be taken up by Supreme Court on February 7,” he said. — PTI