An all-party meeting convened on Tuesday by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu condemned Karnataka for its refusal to release the state’s share of Cauvery river water as directed by the Supreme Court, ANI reported.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin stated, “This all-party meeting strongly condemns the Karnataka government for refusing to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu. We urge CWRC to order the Karnataka Government to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu as per the Supreme Court order and CWMA order.”
Dispute Flares Up Again
The two southern states are often at loggerheads over sharing river water from the Cauvery basin. Tensions flared again on Sunday when the Karnataka government announced it could release only 8,000 cusecs of water from the Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu instead of one thousand million cubic meters of water, ANI reported.
The decision was made after an all-party meeting in Bengaluru, attended by Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, BJP leader CT Ravi, and other prominent state leaders.
Siddaramaiah said, “The collective opinion is that we can’t leave 1 TMC water to Tamil Nadu every day. We have to appeal before the court as we can’t leave 1 TMC water, so we have decided to leave 8,000 cusecs every day to Tamil Nadu.”
He added that there is only 63 percent water in the Cauvery basin dams, and the state was not in a position to release one TMC water each day. One TMC equals 11,500 cusecs of water, and 1 cusec unit equals 28.317 liters of liquid flow per second.
Reacting to Karnataka’s decision, Stalin said the decision is strongly condemnable and announced an all-party meeting to discuss the issue. “As of July 15, 2024, while the total storage in the four main dams of Karnataka is 75.586 TMC ft, the water level in Tamil Nadu’s Mettur reservoir is a mere 13.808 TMC ft,” Stalin said in a statement.
What is the Supreme Court Verdict?
The Supreme Court verdict in February 2018 outlined the quantity of river water to be shared between the states and the institutional mechanisms to enforce them.
According to the court order, of Tamil Nadu’s overall quantity of 404.25 TMC ft, Karnataka should ensure that 177.25 TMC ft is released as per a monthly schedule at an inter-state point called Biligundulu. Of the 177.25 TMC ft, 123.14 TMC ft is to be released between June and September, the active phase of the South-west monsoon rains.
Bengaluru’s Water Crisis
Any variation in the quantity and intensity of monsoon rainfall over Karnataka affects the availability of water in the Cauvery river basin. Poor monsoon rainfall during 2023 led to a drought-like situation over the state.
In March 2024, Bengaluru city was gripped by a severe water crisis. As many as 7,082 villages and 1,193 wards across Karnataka were assessed by the state government as vulnerable to a drinking water crisis in the coming months. Across Bengaluru Urban district, 174 villages and 120 wards were assessed as vulnerable.
