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A good beginning

THE CHANDRABABU NAIDU-S.M. Krishna meeting at Bangalore on Saturday came as a whiff of fresh air in an environment sullied by inter-State river water disputes. The setting was familiar: a 62 per cent deficient monsoon cutting flows in the Krishna basin; the upper riparian State holding on to most of the run-offs; and the lower riparian not getting any significant share. In the normal course, the two State Chief Ministers would have traded complaints, but not water. This time it has been different. Mr. Naidu has sought 50 tmc ft of water from Alamatti and another 10 tmc ft from the Tungabhadra to meet the immediate requirements of the Krishna delta region. Given Karnataka's now fairly comfortable position, Mr. Krishna has agreed to consider the request favourably and let the official delegations led by the Irrigation Secretaries work out the details. Viewed in the context of the growing tendency of States to rely almost exclusively on the judicial route to sort out their share of water, the very meeting of the Chief Ministers and the reported bonhomie between them augur well for a `give and take' approach to replace the legalistic one to dispute resolution.

The two sides have made it clear that the meeting and Mr. Naidu's invitation to Mr. Krishna to make a return visit to Andhra Pradesh soon to maintain the goodwill will not come in the way of the States continuing to press for their rights before a tribunal or in the courts. The Alamatti issue has been a major irritant between the neighbours and the legality of Karnataka raising the dam height cannot be sorted out in a couple of such meetings. With both the States scheduled to go to the polls next year to elect new Assemblies, the ruling parties cannot possibly afford to take risks on such a highly sensitive political issue. In fact, the problem with most of the inter-State water issues has been their politicisation. No Government has been able to take the State's Opposition parties along in reaching an amicable settlement with the neighbouring State over water. But what the meeting of the Chief Ministers has done is to cool the tempers and create an opportunity for officials to formulate a plan to release water to the badly affected farmers.

The analogy of the Naidu-Krishna meeting cannot be directly extended to the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka dispute over the Cauvery waters. But it does provide a pointer. Mr. Krishna has repeatedly suggested a meeting between the two States to defuse the crisis, but his Tamil Nadu counterpart has rejected it outright. The atmosphere has become so surcharged that even an attempt by farmers on both sides of the Cauvery divide to understand each other's problems and find an interim solution has not been able to make much headway. It is clear that leaders of the riparian States need to sit across the table and find an acceptable way to share distress. At least in the case of the Cauvery dispute, there is an Authority to decide, but for the Krishna tangle, there is no mechanism to implement the Bachawat Tribunal's award which is all set for review. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have more or less agreed on the setting up of a new tribunal for the purpose. More than the ruling of the courts, it is political will and a policy of give and take that can resolve such sensitive issues.

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