Karnataka: All-party meeting on Cauvery water dispute begins in Bengaluru

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], August 23 (ANI): The all-party meeting chaired by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to discuss the Cauvery River water dispute started at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Karnataka deputy CM DK Shivakumar, former Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader BS Yediyurappa, Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leader HD Kumaraswamy, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, Lok Sabha MP Sumalatha Ambareesh and several other leaders are present at the meeting. 

Apart from the political leaders, Chief Secretary to the Government Vandita Sharma, Deputy Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister Rajneesh Goyal, Deputy Chief Secretary Water Resources Department Rakesh Singh, Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty, Senior Advocate Mohan Kataraki among other legal experts and senior officials also attended the meeting.

Earlier in a press conference, Deputy CM Shivakumar said Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are “neighbours” adding that he doesn’t want both states to fight with each other over the Cauvery issue.

After the Supreme Court ordered to constitute a bench to hear the Cauvery River water-sharing dispute, DK Shivakumar said that the top court ordered to release 24,000 cusecs of water daily but the state is also facing water shortage.

“SC has ordered to form a separate bench. Till August, they asked us to release 10,000 cusecs. Our demand is we need time at least we are out of shortage of water in our dams,” he said.

Talking about the all-party meeting, Shivakumar said, “We are ready to take their suggestion, if they want us to take all-party delegation we are ready to take it. There are also tigers, forests and many other issues. We’ll discuss everything. We have filed an appeal before Cauvery Water Authority (CWA). We’ll discuss with our legal team along with all parties, we’ll discuss how to behave at distress conditions and formula. It’s a settled issue about water management.”

The matter has been a controversial issue between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for decades and they have been locked in a battle over the sharing of water from the Cauvery River, which is a major source of irrigation and drinking water for millions of people in the region.

The Centre formed the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) on June 2, 1990, to adjudicate disputes between Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Puducherry with respect to the water-sharing capacities.

Tamil Nadu in its fresh application sought direction to the State of Karnataka to immediately release 24,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) from its reservoirs and ensure the availability of the specified quantity of water at Biligundlu on the inter-State border for the remainder of the month for meeting the pressing demands of the standing crops.

It also urged the top court to direct Karnataka to ensure the release of 36.76 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) stipulated for September 2023 as per the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT)’s final award of February 2007 that was modified by the Supreme Court in 2018.

The application said that a direction was given to Karnataka on August 10 to release from its reservoirs 15,000 cusecs at Billigundulu on August 11 for 15 days.

Karnataka failed to fully implement the directions for the release of the stipulated quantum of 10,000 cusecs (0.864 TMC per day) as directed by CWRC, it said.

Karnataka is duty-bound to release the Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu as per the final order passed by the Tribunal as modified by this Court, the application stated.