The 145;Family146; steps in to plug Tribunal146;s gaps

In the wake of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal giving its final award, the 'Cauvery Family', a dialogue group comprising farmers...

In the wake of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal giving its final award, the 8216;Cauvery Family8217;, a dialogue group comprising farmers, farmer leaders, politicians and academics from both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, proposes to use a model called 8216;WEAP8217; Water Evaluation and Applied System developed by the Stockholm Research Institute to resolve problems between the two states during distress sharing.

The Cauvery dispute is a perennial problem between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, particularly when monsoon fails and the two states have to resort to distress sharing of available waters. The Tribunal in its final award has not given a detailed distress sharing formula. It merely says that in case the yield of the Cauvery Basin is less in a distress year when rainfall is low, the allocated shares shall be proportionately reduced among the riparian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

8220;So, we decided to use the 8216;WEAP8217; model developed by the Stockholm Research Institute, successfully used in water-sharing problems, for the two states. We are going to use it now for the Cauvery farmers,8221; said S Janakarajan, Cauvery Family convenor and Professor of Economics at the Madras Institute of Development Studies MIDS. The Cauvery Family will meet this month-end at MIDS and take a decision on how best to use the 8216;WEAP8217; model.

When the Cauvery Family was constituted first in April 2003, with 16 members both in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, there was much skepticism about its role, particularly in resolving an issue which had attained sharp political and even violent overtones. Farmer leaders in Karnataka had talked of 8220;blood flowing through Cauvery8221; and there were equally aggressive farmers in Tamil Nadu.

But the Family is credited, to some extent, with warding some of this off. 8220;We have brought many of the farmers from both states together and helped them trust each other,8221; said Janakarajan. The family organised field trips so that farmers in Karnataka, who believed Tamil Nadu grew three paddy crops and had lots of groundwater, could see for themselves the real situation. As for Tamil Nadu farmers, who believed that all tanks in Karnataka were full, they could see for themselves the actual scenario,8221; he pointed out.

To work out the 8216;WEAP8217; model, farmers will feed in data into the computer about water availability and the crop they would like to grow, and the model will throw up several scenarios in which they can work best. 8220;We will appoint two people, one in each state, to collect the various data,8221; said Janakarajan.