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Power plant: Karnataka to move Cauvery tribunal

Special Correspondent

Cabinet approves the draft of clarificatory petition

Bangalore: In its clarificatory petition to be filed before the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) in a few days, the State Government is expected to seek the tribunal's intervention for the construction of a hydel power plant at Mekedatu along the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.

Briefing presspersons on the decisions taken at a meeting of the Cabinet here on Wednesday, Minister for Home M.P. Prakash said the draft of the clarificatory petition had been approved by the Cabinet. Advocate-General Uday Holla briefed the members of the Cabinet on the salient features of the clarificatory petition. It was said that although there was a mention in the final award of the CWDT on the demand of Karnataka for a hydel power plant across the Cauvery there was no clarity on it. The plea of Karnataka was to construct a power plant and thereafter release the water. In other words, the State would like to construct a reservoir close to the border for operating the power plant before the river water makes its way to the Stanley Reservoir at Mettur.

The other salient features of the clarificatory petition included the need to take into account the underground water in the Cauvery delta, the need for the State to account for release of water to safeguard the environment, etc. Karnataka has also sought permission for diversion of Cauvery water allocation made to Kerala from the Kabini until such time Kerala decides on the construction of a reservoir.

An all-party meeting held about a month ago under the leadership of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa had unanimously resolved to file two petitions in the Supreme Court — an original suit (under Article 131) and a Special Leave Petition (under Article 136), besides a clarificatory petition under Section 5 (3) of the Inter State River Water Disputes Act. The SLP has since been filed and the next to be filed would be the original suit.

Experts to decide timing

It was also left to the legal experts to choose the timing of filing the petitions, as Tamil Nadu had also decided to file a clarificatory petition before the tribunal, and was likely to monitor the developments in Karnataka. The State obviously does not want Tamil Nadu to get scent of the contents of the Karnataka petitions before they are filed, nor file it too far ahead of the 90-day deadline prescribed for the purpose, which expires on May 6.

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