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Amid its current Cauvery water standoff with Tamil Nadu, the Congress-ruled Karnataka has adopted a strategy of adhering to the orders of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Supreme Court for release of water to Tamil Nadu while hoping that the deficient rain situation in the Cauvery river basin would improve by mid-September to fill its dams and facilitate in its water sharing with the neighbouring state.
Nearly four weeks into the Cauvery water crisis, the Siddaramaiah-led Karnataka government has released 12.97 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet of water to Tamil Nadu over the first 15 days and would now release water at the rate of 5000 cusecs per day till September 12, as stipulated by the CWMA, despite the water storage in the dams being 60 per cent of the 2022 levels.
In the past decades, the non-compromising stands taken by the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments on the issue had triggered conflict between the two states. This has however been dialled down since legal frameworks have been created for both states to address their concerns after the Supreme Court firmed up a water-sharing resolution in 2018.
However, with proper rains still eluding the Cauvery basin the Congress government is increasingly coming under political pressure in Karnataka over the lack of water for its own sugarcane and paddy farmers while being forced to release water for irrigation purposes in Tamil Nadu.
The Opposition Janata Dal (Secular), which has a strong presence in the Cauvery region, is yet to play its card on the row, even as party supremo and former PM H D Deve Gowda has always adopted a conciliatory approach to the water-sharing issue.
The Siddaramaiah government has now decided to ask the CWMA to inspect the storage of water in the Cauvery basin dams. It is also suggesting that allowing Karnataka to build a check dam at Mekedatu on the Cauvery river on the Karnataka side is the only solution to lack of water in scanty rainfall years.
Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar, who also holds the water resources portfolio, have argued that a Mekedatu check dam will allow the release of water downstream to Tamil Nadu in drought years
while also serving as a key source for drinking water supply to cities like Bengaluru and its surrounding regions. Tamil Nadu has opposed Karnataka’s proposal for a dam at Mekedatu on the ground that it is not part of the Cauvery river water sharing agreement.
“On August 29, Tamil Nadu requested for 24,000 cusecs of water and we said we are not in a position to release and agreed to release 3,000 cusecs of water. And ultimately the CWMA has told us to release 5,000 cusecs of water, but we have to honour it and we are honouring it,” Shivakumar said Friday.
“Mekedatu (dam) is the only issue and we are making a plea before the concerned authorities to consider this aspect. Earlier we were directed against speaking about the project but now we feel that if the dam was available then we could have stored water (downstream),” Shivakumar said after meeting legal experts in New Delhi to discuss the state’s strategy over the row.
Last year, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar had staged a walkathon through the Mekedatu region to demand implementation of a Mekedatu check dam project close to Bengaluru.
“The situation has now turned grim and so we are going back before the monitoring authority saying it is very difficult for us. We are requesting them to visit our sites to know the exact situation. We were expecting some rainfall but I think it is a bleak situation. I hope they will visit and see it with their own eyes and make a decision,” Shivakumar said Friday.
Against a total storage capacity of 114.57 TMC in four Cauvery basin dams in Karnataka – Harangi, Hemavathi, KRS and Kabini – the storage as of August 31 was 69.63 TMC, which is 61 per cent of the 111.82 TMC storage at the same time last year.
As per the final Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) 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 August and 36.76 TMC in September.
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.
The CWRC observed that Karnataka had only released 30.252 TMC of water into the Billigundlu measuring region in Tamil Nadu from June 1, 2023 to August 28, 2023 as opposed to the stipulated 80.451 TMC in a normal year. The panel said Karnataka would have to release 9.3 TMC of water from August 29 to September 12 to meet its quota of water release in this period in a distress year.
While Tamil Nadu demanded the release of 14,600 cusecs of water per day till September 12, based on the CWRC’s distress findings the CWMA ordered the release of 5,000 cusec per day.
“If I have to say in limited words then there will be no shortage of supply for drinking water to Bengaluru, Ramanagara, Channapatana from the Cauvery river. We will do all we can to preserve water for drinking. Even for the farmers we will ensure their interests are protected. The interest of the state is our priority. We must also respect the law,” Shivakumar said in Bengaluru upon his return from Delhi.
The Karnataka BJP recently staged a protest at Mandya, condemning the Siddaramaiah government’s decision to release water to Tamil Nadu. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, former CM Basavaraj Bommai said the government had failed to convey the state’s problems due to poor rains to the central agencies.
“On one hand they (Congress government) are releasing the water. On the other hand, they are saying that they will go for a review,” Bommai said.
“The Opposition knows the situation. Bommai has been the CM and the water resources minister for five years. They are capable of understanding the situation but in politics they would have to make statements,” Shivakumar said amid signs that the BJP was planning fresh protests in the first week of September.
Shivakumar said the government would consider taking an all-party delegation to Delhi to seek a distress formula for sharing of the Cauvery water in crisis years. He also suggested that Tamil Nadu should have stored water last year when there was excess release.
“We are going to ask the Authority to visit our sites and to facilitate the implementation of the Mekedatu project which will only help Tamil Nadu. We want them to understand that the Mekedatu dam will help Tamil Nadu more than Karnataka. In distress years it would be helpful,” he said.
Siddaramaiah has said that the CWDT and other related bodies had not come up with a distress formula. “One, there should be a distress formula. Second, the Mekedatu balancing reservoir should be constructed,” he said.
