THE STATES

Cauvery concerns

The issue of sharing Cauvery waters between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka once again reaches boiling point.

T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
in Chennai

PARVATHI MENON
in Bangalore

THE Cauvery, even with a bone-dry river bed, is a perennial cause of wrangles among political parties in Tamil Nadu. If the question of sharing Cauvery waters comes to a boil between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka almost every year, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) added to the summertime heat in April itself this year, each accusing the other of "treachery" in sacrificing Tamil Nadu's interests. So it was no surprise when all parties attacked Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for the three decisions announced on June 21. They were: (1) Tamil Nadu will not participate in the Cauvery River Authority meetings because the CRA "is unable to implement effectively the orders of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal"; (2) Tamil Nadu will file a new case in the Supreme Court praying for a direction to the Centre to frame a new scheme wherein the interim order of the Tribunal and its final order, which is to be passed, will be implemented effectively; and (3) The Supreme Court will also be moved seeking a direction to Karnataka to implement the interim and final orders.

Dr. S. Ramadoss, founder of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), alleged that the decision to file a new case when an earlier case was pending, was meant to cover up the AIADMK government's defeat in the Cauvery issue. It is a "a diversionary tactic instead of making efforts to get water for Tamil Nadu's farmers," he said. The boycott of the CRA headed by the Prime Minister, according to Ramadoss, was not an act of discretion. (While the Prime Minister heads the CRA, the Chief Ministers of the riparian States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry are its members.)

The Krishnaraja Sagar reservoir, as photographed on June 22.

Former Chief Minister and DMK president M. Karunanidhi agreed with Ramadoss. K. Balakrishnan, secretary of the State unit of the All India Kisan Sabha, affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said the decision to boycott the CRA had "naked political motives'. A new case would halt the Centre's intervention in the issue, he argued.

The situation in the Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Tiruchi districts of the Cauvery delta is grim. On June 12, when Karnataka begins releasing to the Mettur dam water meant for Tamil Nadu, the reservoir was almost dry. With no prospect of the kuruvai paddy crop being raised on three lakh to four lakh acres, the prospect of 25 lakh farm labourers being rendered jobless is very real. Public Works Minister O. Panneerselvam pointed out that a release of 3 tmcft water to Tamil Nadu now (Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee made the suggestion to Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna on July 26, and Krishna ruled it out.) would not in any way ease the situation.

Panneerselvam said that while 90 tmcft was required to cultivate kuruvai, the level at Mettur was only 9.798 tmcft as on June 26, with the dead storage of 5 tmcft. So only 4.798 tmcft of water would be available for irrigation. So the release of 3 tmcft would not be sufficient. He, therefore, appealed to Vajpayee to pressure Karnataka to release sufficient quantity of water for the kuruvai crop.

The Tribunal, in its interim order of June 1991, mandated that Karnataka must release 205 tmcft to Tamil Nadu in a water year (June to May). The order prescribed the weekly and monthly releases. It also directed Karnataka not to increase its area of irrigation under the Cauvery beyond 11.2 lakh acres (about 4.5 hectares) - the figure mentioned by Karnataka in May 1991. In the Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu, paddy is cultivated on a total area of 12 lakh acres (about 5 ha) - kuruvai first on three to four lakh acres and samba on nine lakh acres. If the storage at the Mettur reservoir, which has a capacity of 93 tmcft, is sufficient, water is released around June 12 every year for raising kuruvai. If the northeast monsoon brings enough rain, another crop called 'thaladi' is raised.

Two important issues came to the fore in the current stand-off between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. While Krishna claimed that Karnataka had released the stipulated 205 tmcft from June 2001 to May 2002, Jayalalithaa asserted that there was "a huge shortfall" of 42 tmcft. Krishna swears by the readings at Biligundlu and Jayalalithaa by the water that is available at the Mettur dam. The farmers' organisations are naturally keen that the Tribunal in its final order should suggest a solution that will give no room for differences in calibration.

The other issue is Jayalalithaa's allegation that Karnataka has increased the area cultivated manifold over the years and had taken to summer crop cultivation in a big way using the storages in new reservoirs. So it became "a very easy pretext for Karnataka to put the blame on the failure of the (southwest) monsoon for not releasing enough water into the Mettur reservoir" as per the interim order. This was why Tamil Nadu decided to "dissociate" itself from the meetings of the CRA and the monitoring committee, she said.

(The final arguments are now on before the Tribunal, which is headed by N.P. Singh and which has S.D. Agrawala and N.S. Roy as members. Tamil Nadu has completed its arguments. Its counsel A.K. Ganguly argued that equitable apportionment of water was possible under the 1892 Madras-Mysore agreement and the 1924 accord, both of which were still in force. All the riparian States will complete their arguments by June 2003 and the final award may come a couple of months later.)

Jayalalithaa alleged that Karnataka had shifted its cropping period for its second crop from October-December/January to February-May and exhausted the available storages by the time the southwest monsoon set in in June."That is why Karnataka never has water to release for Tamil Nadu in June at the start of the kuruvai season," she contended.

P. GOUTHAM
The Mettur reservoir, as photographed on June 19.

S. Ranganathan, secretary of the Cauvery Delta Farmers' Welfare Association, pointed out that "Karnataka is now developing a channel system and the plan is to achieve an extent of 23 lakh acres (9.2 lakh ha). If it is allowed to do this, it will result in Tamil Nadu not getting enough water for the samba crop as well."

Jayalalithaa argued that when Tamil Nadu faced a deficit of 63 tmcft on September 30 last, Karnataka had 92 tmcft in its four major reservoirs after full utilisation. "Karnataka could have met at least part of the deficit, which would have helped Tamil Nadu start its kuruvai operations in time," she said.

The AIADMK government has been quietly working on the issue. In April, Jayalalithaa wrote to Krishna pointing to the "huge shortfall" of 42 tmcft during the irrigation season 2001-2002 and requested him to make good the shortfall and also ensure supply of water from June as per the interim order. She wrote another letter to him on June 1. The Tamil Nadu government also wrote to the Centre in December 2001, in May and twice in June pressing for a meeting of the CRA. On June 6, Jayalalithaa reviewed the storage situation at Mettur. When she met the Prime Minister on June 12, she explained to him the grave situation in the State and sought his intervention to amend the CRA's Rules of Business. Vajpayee told her that the Rules could not be amended without Karnataka's consent. So the Tamil Nadu Government concluded that no help would be forthcoming from the Centre in the implementation of the interim order.

Meanwhile, the agriculture wing of the DMK decided to meet Vajpayee and Krishna to press for early release of water in the Cauvery to Tamil Nadu. A PMK delegation led by Member of the Legislative Assembly G.K. Mani met Krishna on June 22 in Bangalore and urged him to release water so that farmers could cultivate kuruvai.

THE last round of acrimony between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka occurred in October 2001, when Tamil Nadu said that Karnataka had failed to release 60 tmcft of water between June and September, resulting in a Rs.300-crore loss in the kuruvai crop. Karnataka, in its reply, pointed to the low inflows into the State's reservoirs during those months owing to the drought, despite which the demand by Tamil Nadu for 1 tmcft of water a day through September-October was met.

Tamil Nadu's decision to boycott the CRA has predictably been criticised by all political parties in Karnataka. The Tamil Nadu government's proposal to open a new track in the dispute by seeking the direct intervention of the Supreme Court in the matter is seen as a move that will tie in knots a dispute that is already hopelessly entangled. The positions of the respective States have turned a full circle. It was Karnataka that was deeply suspicious of the role of the CRA when it was first established, and the State was initially a reluctant participant in its proceedings.

In his letter of June 22 to his counterpart Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister S.M. Krishna clarified the State's position. First, the inflows this year into the State's reservoirs were far below normal owing to inadequate rain in the catchment areas, he said. From June 1, Karnataka received less than 4 tmcft of water in its reservoirs. Of this, the release of 2.08 tmcft, or roughly half the amount, was ensured at the water gauging centre at Biligundlu, at the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border. Secondly, he stated that there were no accumulated shortfalls of the previous year's quota for the current water year commencing June 1, as Tamil Nadu had alleged. He pointed out that while Tamil Nadu measured inflows into the Mettur dam, Karnataka has taken the stand that inflows should be measured at Biligundlu where there was a Central Water Commission gauging station. Even the Tribunal based its December 19, 1995 Interim Order on the measurements at Biligundlu and not those at Mettur. As there were differences in computation at Biligundlu and Mettur, a standing committee was set up by the Union Ministry of Water Resources in 1994 to resolve the differences. Krishna charged Tamil Nadu with failing to cooperate with the committee. Indeed, the contribution of water from the catchment area between Biligundlu and Mettur must enter the computation of inflows into Mettur, he argued. He recalled that the State released 59 tmcft of water between September 17 and October 31, 2001, on Tamil Nadu's request.

However, unlike the tone and tenor of Jayalalithaa's public statements, Krishna chose to strike a conciliatory note in his letter: "Please be assured that I am monitoring the position of flow and storage in Karnataka reservoirs in the Cauvery basin on a regular basis in order to see how best the interests of the farmers of each of the states could be safeguarded."

For Tamil Nadu, the issue is one of timely release of water for the kuruvai crops. This, in turn, can only be assured if the early monsoons in the upper catchment areas are copious and sufficient to meet the sowing requirements of farmers in both States. In order to implement the distress-sharing formula in the Interim Order, an approach of shared purpose between the two States is required. In the current state of hostility there does not appear to be a viable short-term solution.