The chat room: When do we go from water-dumb' to water-smart'?

After the Supreme Court told Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs daily to Tamil Nadu, the Cauvery water-sharing row has escalated yet again resulting in mass protests and bandhs called by pro-Kannada leaders. An issue that keeps cropping up. In 1991, in 2002 and again in 2012. 2016 is also seeing the same as this Friday, Karnataka went ahead with the state-wide bandh over the Cauvery issue.

Also, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written a letter to Prime Minister urging him to convene Chief Ministers' meeting to resolve the Cauvery issue. "I don't think the Prime Minister can do much in this issue. This issue of cannot be solved with dialogues. It can be only solved at the level involving the science of water harvesting, science of desilting. The problem needs to be solved at that level," says urban expert, Ashwin Mahesh who gets to the heart of the Cauvery unrest, while speaking to  Joyeeta Chakravorty.

Stressing that talks being held while protests are ongoing, would not be able to reach any amicable solution, he said:  "The chief ministers have been talking to each other about this issue for a very long time and I have no reason to think that any talk which if or would happen would result in something different or positive."

"Fundamentally, throughout all river basins it is an upstream versus downstream issue and not an inter-state issue. The biggest problem however is that we always assume that there is not enough water, when in fact, we don't use it wisely," he says.

 Speaking about the "My point is that there is enough water for everyone contrary to what we believe in. What we should concentrate on, is the effective use of water and minimal wastage. Bengaluru uses 4% of the Cauvery water, and all the other towns put together get another 3%-4%. Whereas irrigation takes up 65% of the Cauvery water which globally the share of agriculture in water use in a river basin is in the 20-30% range.  Hence, if we make agriculture slightly more efficient in water use, we will never need to worry about drinking water shortages for a long time and these panic situations would not arise," he highlights.

 "Why wait to get to that point of 'What can be done now?'. Dealing with current problem is not the solution. We have to put together a proposal of what we want from our state and it cannot be simplistic. Like we want all the tributaries to be desilted, reservoirs to be desilted and pipes to be fixed to prevent leakges. And reach the Central Government for money," he says.

"Karnataka should seek, from the Supreme Court and from the Cauvery River Authority, an independently monitored process by which agriculture in the basin of the Cauvery - including in our state - is made less dependent on water. The choice of crops, the techniques of cropping, etc. should get more and more water-smart over time."

"The long-overdue de-silting of all reservoirs should also be taken up," he stresses. The water sharing has always been a headache to the upper and the lower riparian settlements along a river anywhere.

"Both states should be allowed to build more dams and basically it is not a quantity problem but it is a science or engineering problem. Sadly, the political parties are converting it into a political problem and hence making it harder to solve," he said.

Recently even the Ministry of Water Resources, in a 2007 report (The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal), noted that "all sincere attempts" by the Indian government to settle "this long pending water dispute by negotiations since 1970 have failed. So, how does one work towards a solution? "Instead of fighting and holding protests and bandhs the CMs should join hands and go to central government ask them to allocate money to desilt dams and tributaries and fix pipes and also improve water conservation in Karnataka. It is simple but requires systematic work for 3-5 years," he said.