The Hindu : Front Page : State to press for final order on Cauvery dispute

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 27, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

State to press for final order on Cauvery dispute

Staff Reporter

Chief Minister to lead delegation to Manmohan Singh

CUTTING ACROSS PARTY LINES: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy (third from left), State BJP president D.V. Sadananda Gowda (left), Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly N. Dharam Singh, Minister for Water Resources K.S. Eshwarappa, H.K. Patil, MLC, a nd Minister for Law Basavaraj S. Horatti, at an all-party meeting in Bangalore on Wednesday. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

BANGALORE: The State must reject the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal order directing the Union Government to constitute a three-member committee to go into the water requirements and crop pattern in the four riparian States, and a delegation should meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pressing for a final order on the dispute, an all-party meeting presided over by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy decided on Wednesday.

Though a date has not been set for the delegation going to Delhi, it has been decided to wait until May 5, when the tribunal will study the response from the four States, which are to be filed by April 28, and determine whether the April 21 order is absolute or not.

Tribunal Chairman and former Supreme Court judge N.P. Singh had dissented with the two members N.S. Rao and Sudheer Narain who passed the order saying it was only a tentative one.

Water Resources Minister K.S. Eshwarappa and Law Minister Basavaraj S. Horatti told presspersons after the meeting that everyone, cutting across party lines, expressed the view that a final order from the tribunal was long overdue.

Many documents, surveys and studies had been taken up, and one more expert committee to study the crop pattern and water requirements would be superfluous.

This, incidentally, has been the line taken by the other riparian States: Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala.

The Supreme Court set up the tribunal in April 1991 to settle the dispute as mandated in the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act.

The tribunal heard arguments and gave an interim award that Karnataka must annually release 205 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water from its reservoirs in the Cauvery Basin to Tamil Nadu, on a monthly basis.

But the State declined to accept the ruling of the tribunal. The State Government argued that the tribunal had issued an award that could not be implemented. It could not be complied with in years of distress, and many parts of the State would be left without adequate water. If the Government were to release more than 100 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu, then it would be at the cost of its own people, it contended.

Wednesday's meeting, attended by Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly N. Dharam Singh, his counterpart in the Legislative Council, H.K. Patil, and others, was of the view that the tribunal was trying to delay its final award by suggesting the constitution of one more committee. The tribunal's term ends on August 7.

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