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Cauvery waters: Karnataka rejects assessors' `report'

J. Venkatesan

The advice of the assessors is only "notes" and not a "report", says Government

New Delhi: Karnataka has rejected the "report" of the two assessors of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal on apportionment of water among the riparian States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Pondicherry.

According to the assessors' estimate released in May, Tamil Nadu is to get 395 tmcft of water for irrigating 24.70 lakh acres of land; Karnataka 250 tmcft for irrigating 18.85 lakh acres; Kerala 33.40 tmcft and Pondicherry 7 tmcft. This estimate is based on the total average availability of 740 tmcft water in the Cauvery basin.

Tamil Nadu had objected to the report. In its response, Karnataka said the advice of the assessors could be described only as "notes" and not as "report."

It said that these notes "do not clearly bring out the views/reasoning of the assessors and are not capable of being understood/comprehended or responded to and commented on. Further they were incomplete because of the absence of disclosure on technical issues, namely groundwater and surface water." Tracing the proceedings before the tribunal in the past 16 years, Karnataka said that at no time had the tribunal thought it fit to disclose to the parties all or any of the notes/reports of the assessors, which were circulated to the chairman and the two members.

It said that crop water requirement had been argued before the tribunal from the start on an adversarial basis for arriving at an adjudication and no attempt had been initiated for the past 16 years for undertaking an independent investigation to collect evidence on any point.

Karnataka pointed out that an independent investigation suggested by it in the beginning was rejected on the ground that ample opportunity was being given to the riparian States to produce documents and to lead evidence. Karnataka said that the tribunal had maintained that it was adopting only adversarial procedure when it made its preliminary submissions in October 2005 on irrigation water requirement of 408 tmcft. Unlike Narmada Tribunal, which had conducted investigation on water requirements through its assessors, the Cauvery Tribunal had not adopted any such procedure since its inception, it said. The tribunal is to meet on July 10 to consider the responses of the States.

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