Karnataka is considering approaching the Supreme Court against a Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) direction to release 6,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu, Water Resources Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy said in Bengaluru on Tuesday. He described the direction as unreasonable and said the state’s authorities had argued its position before the committee.
The minister said Tamil Nadu had sought the release of 17,000 cusecs of water, but the inflow into the Cauvery basin had fallen significantly over the past week. In that situation, releasing even 6,000 cusecs would be difficult for Karnataka, he said.
“We are making continuous efforts towards releasing zero water,” Cheluvarayaswamy said, according to Prajavani. He added that the state government was seriously considering filing an application before the Supreme Court after discussions with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, possibly as early as Wednesday.
The minister said Karnataka’s officials had presented the ground-level water situation during the CWRC meeting. He criticised constitutional and administrative bodies operating from Delhi for not adequately understanding conditions on the ground, and said similar directions had been issued in the past without fully accounting for the situation in the basin.
According to the minister, about 50% of the water currently available in Karnataka’s reservoirs has been reserved for drinking water. He said water was being supplied to farmers from the Bhadra and Upper Krishna Project areas according to agricultural requirements.
Cheluvarayaswamy also said water had been released through the river to prevent drinking-water problems in the Chitradurga region. Reservoirs were being managed in a controlled manner to fill lakes and avoid shortages for people and livestock, he said.
The dispute places drinking-water requirements, agricultural demand and obligations under the Cauvery water-sharing framework in direct tension. The minister’s statement indicates that Karnataka intends to challenge the latest direction through the Supreme Court, although the report does not establish whether an application had been filed at the time of publication.
The next formal step is expected to follow the proposed discussion between the water resources minister and the chief minister. The exact terms of the CWRC order and any Supreme Court filing will determine the immediate course of the dispute.
