The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Cauvery Family plans to meet Chief Ministers

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Wednesday, Aug 01, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Cauvery Family plans to meet Chief Ministers

Special Correspondent

It will strive for a consensus among its members on the final award of the tribunal

— Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

FOR CONSENSUS: (From left) K.C. Basavaraju, Ramaswamy R. Iyer, S. Janakarajan and S. Ranganathan, members of the Cauvery Family, discussing the Cauvery issue in Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI: The Cauvery Family, a four-year-old body of stakeholders from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is planning to meet the Chief Ministers and technical experts of the two States after evolving a consensus among its members on the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, according to S. Janakarajan, its convener.

At the end of the two-day meeting of the organisation on Tuesday, Prof. Janakarajan told reporters that both sides made presentations, expressing their views on the award. “We have decided to meet the Chief Ministers, the Secretaries [of the Irrigation Departments] and technical people only after arriving at a possible solution.” The Family’s proposal would be presented to the State Governments . (The meeting was the first after the Tribunal gave the final award in February).

He said it was proposed to hold a “grand meeting” with all the stakeholders, including the Chief Ministers. A press note issued by the Family said: “We have reached a promising stage in the process of dialogue. We are planning to meet in Bangalore in the last week of August when we hope to reach some broad understanding and a possible solution.”

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, one of the advisers of the Family, said if the farmers of the two States were able to reach an understanding on the sharing of the water and other issues, this would carry weight. The legal position was that such an understanding had to be presented to the State Governments which, in turn, could place them before the Tribunal or the court. The State Governments were parties to the dispute under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act.

S. Ranganathan, a representative of Tamil Nadu, said there were immense opportunities for resolving the dispute amicably. K.C. Basavaraju, Karnataka representative, hoped that the Family would arrive at an understanding at the next meeting.

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