Karnataka has appealed to the Cauvery Water Management Authority to reduce the mandated Cauvery water release to Tamil Nadu from 9,000 cusecs a day to 2,000 cusecs, citing falling inflows into its four reservoirs and concerns over drinking-water supply. The appeal was submitted by the state’s Water Resources Department on Friday, according to a report by Prajavani.
The authority had ordered Karnataka on August 25 to release 9,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to Tamil Nadu. Under that order, the state is required to release a total of 11.66 thousand million cubic feet of water by September 8.
Water Resources Department Additional Chief Secretary Gaurav Gupta submitted the appeal to the authority. He said the combined storage in Karnataka’s four reservoirs stood at 66.62 TMC feet and argued that the inflow would not exceed 20 TMC feet in the coming days because of the impact of El Niño.
Gupta said compliance with the existing order could create difficulties for drinking-water supply in Karnataka. He also said the authority had not adequately considered the available live storage in the Krishna Raja Sagar and Kabini reservoirs, which stood at 26.13 TMC feet and 10.12 TMC feet respectively.
The appeal also compared reservoir storage on the two sides of the inter-state basin. According to the figures cited by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu’s three reservoirs held 61.22 TMC feet of water. Karnataka said its four reservoirs had received 106.98 TMC feet of inflows between June and the end of August this year, compared with 212 TMC feet during the same period last year.
The state government said the reduced inflows had made continued releases to Tamil Nadu difficult under the current circumstances. Its submission asked the authority to issue an urgent order revising the daily release quantity from 9,000 cusecs to 2,000 cusecs.
Karnataka also told the authority that it had already released more water than required during the period from July 29 to September 4. During that period, the state released 327,647 cusecs, equivalent to 28.30 TMC feet, to Tamil Nadu. The authority’s order required a release of 295,500 cusecs, or 25.53 TMC feet, for the same period, according to the state’s submission.
The appeal places reservoir storage, seasonal inflows and drinking-water requirements at the centre of the current dispute over implementation of the Cauvery release order. The authority’s response to Karnataka’s request and any revision to the August 25 direction will determine the next stage of water releases through September 8.
