Karnataka government to adhere to SC order on Cauvery water release to TN till Sep 26

Following the order, protests have intensified against the Congress government in Karnataka. On Saturday, BJP leaders like former chief ministers B S Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai courted arrests after staging protests even as farmers’ groups called a bandh in Mandya district in the Cauvery basin where farmers depend on the Cauvery for irrigation. A farmers’ group has also called a bandh in Bengaluru on September 26, Tuesday.

The Congress government in Karnataka, in a Cabinet meeting on Friday, however decided that the state will adhere to the apex court’s orders to release water till September 26. “At present an average of 3,000 to 3,500 cusecs is flowing to Tamil Nadu naturally. Till September 26, we have been directed to follow the CWMA order. We will decide our strategy after that date,” Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who also holds the Water Resources portfolio, stated following the Cabinet meeting.

Shivakumar said the state government would seek the intervention of the Modi-led central government to resolve the issue through talks with Tamil Nadu if the problem persists. “Talks will be sought after September 26. We have asked the Centre to mediate the talks,” Shivakumar said while asking Opposition parties not to politicise the issue. “The PM must intervene is what Deve Gowda (JDS leader and former prime minister) has said,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Yediyurappa and Bommai have urged the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government to file a review petition before the apex court challenging the September 21 Supreme Court direction to follow the CWMA’s orders. Yediyurappa alleged that the Congress government failed to place the concerns of the state before the apex court. Karnataka should have filed a petition in the Supreme Court as soon as the CWMA issued an order, Bommai stated.

“After releasing water twice, they have gone to the court now,” Bommai said, adding that while the monsoon season in Karnataka is almost over, Tamil Nadu would still benefit from the north-east monsoon from October to December.

BJP leader C T Ravi also alleged that water was being released from the Cauvery basin by the Congress government in Karnataka on account of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu being a part of the Opposition’s INDIA coalition.

The Congress government had approached the Supreme Court saying it cannot release any water after the CWMA upheld a September 12 recommendation of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee for continuing the release of water at the rate of 5,000 cusecs per day for 15 days.

Janata Dal Secular (JDS) party leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, who has strong support among farmers in the Cauvery basin in Karnataka, said that the “government must not release water for any reason.”

The Karnataka government released 12.97 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet of water between August 14 and 28 and nearly 7 TMC of water from August 29 till September 12 as stipulated by the CWMA despite the storage in dams in the Cauvery basin being at 60 per cent of the levels compared to 2022.

As per the final Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal formula for water sharing with Tamil Nadu – as modified by the Supreme Court in 2018 – Karnataka should release a total of 45.95 TMC of water in the month of August and 36.76 TMC in September in a normal monsoon season.

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) which calibrates the water sharing formula depending on the inflows into the Karnataka dams observed on August 28 that the rainfall was deficient by minus 26 per cent in the Cauvery basin in Karnataka. While Tamil Nadu demanded the release of 14,600 cusecs of water per day till September 12, based on the distress findings of the CWRC, the CWMA ordered the release of 5,000 cusecs.