Varsha Sriram
The Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) on Tuesday ordered Karnataka to release 9.19 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of Cauvery water from the Biligundlu reservoir to the Mettur Dam in Tamil Nadu as part of the June quota.
The order was issued during a meeting of the CWMA in the Central Water Commission’s office in Delhi, in which representatives from the governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry participated. The meeting was chaired by the Chairman of the Authority, S Masood Hussain.
“It was a unanimous decision. The forecast, so far, is for a normal monsoon and keeping in view the water level in the dams and reservoirs, we have directed 9.19 tmcft of water to be released for the month of June,” Masood Hussain, Chairman, CWMA, told The Hindu.
The order came after the representatives from Tamil Nadu requested the Authority to direct Karnataka to release water in time for raising the short-term Kuruvai (paddy) crops in the delta districts of Tamil Nadu.
SK Prabakaran, Principal Secretary of the PWD, who represented Tamil Nadu, spoke to the reporters after the meeting and said that people of the state were eagerly awaiting water for cultivation of Kuruvai crops in Tamil Nadu. “We placed our demand to the Authority today, asking them to order water release without any shortfall. The Authority conducted discussions on that and has assured that it will provide the water share as mandated for June and has decided to give 9.19 tmcft water to Tamil Nadu,” he said as quoted by The News Minute. It is also said that Mekedatu issue was not discussed in the meeting.
Times of India reported that The Chairman, Masood Hussain said that Karnataka has agreed to release water. “The meeting decided unanimously that Karnataka should release at the prescribed quota at Billigundulu (the inter-state border), presuming the inflows to be normal as prescribe in the gazette notification..We held the meeting in a cordial atmosphere and it was very fruitful,” he said.
Tuesday’s meeting was the third meeting of the CWMA from when it was constituted in June 2018 following a Supreme Court order. The Supreme Court in 2018 delivered the final verdict in the decade-long dispute over Cauvery water sharing between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, asking Karnataka to release 177.25 tmcft water from the Billigundlu dam to Mettur dam on Cauvery every year to Tamil Nadu for the next 15 years. The Authority is also expected to meet once in 10 days from June to October.
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