Bengaluru: With both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the edge over sharing of Cauvery water, all eyes are on the Cauvery Supervisory Committee (CSC), which will be meeting on September 19 to work out a distress formula for water sharing.
But Karnataka officials are sceptical about the outcome of the meeting and fear that the committee, which was constituted after the final order of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal in 2007, is working on the distress formula without any logic.
Sources in the state government maintained that the CSC, comprising officials from the water resources department and irrigation experts, seems to have adopted the simple percentile method to assess the severity of distress in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka before fixing the water sharing method during a hard year.
After the CSC pronounces its order on September 19, Supreme Court will continue to hear the case on Tamil Nadu’s petition seeking more water on September 20.
“In the Cauvery basin, the rain deficit is estimated at 49 per cent this year. The CSC is working out a distress formula and seems to be preparing to suggest that Karnataka should release 49 per cent less water to Tamil Nadu in the monthly quota fixed by the tribunal in its final order,” sources said.
In other words, K’taka would have to release more water to TN than it is letting out now. The sources declined to quantify the excess water to be fixed by the CSC. K’taka has a reason to oppose this move. First, since the tribunal in its final order has not fixed any distress formula, the CSC cannot work out its own distress formula.
“It is an executive body and therefore, has no powers to voluntarily fix the distress formula. The CSC’s attempt to fix a distress quota by reducing the tribunal’s final order by 49 per cent is an erroneous method. They cannot work out a monthly distress formula which was not in the original order,” sources argued.
Instead, the CSC could obtain real time data on standing crop area, quantum of water in reservoirs and requirement of water for the rest of the water year and work out a formula which would be more realistic than the present one, sources said.
Siddaramaiah writes 2nd letter to Jaya
Following the bandh called by pro-Tamil organizations in Tamil Nadu on Friday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written a letter to his TN counterpart, J. Jayalalithaa requesting her to ensure the safety of Kannadigas in the neighbourng state.
In the letter, Mr Siddaramaiah said, “I am deeply concerned that certain organisations have called for a bandh in Tamil Nadu on Friday. You would agree that any escalation of animosity between the two states would be to the collective detriment of both states,” he said in his letter, a copy of which was released to the media here.
