The Hindu : CRA meet hinges on consensus over distress sharing formula

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

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National

CRA meet hinges on consensus over distress sharing formula

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI SEPT. 6. All the four basin States of Cauvery, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry, have confirmed their participation in the 14th official-level (emergency) meeting of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee here tomorrow to finalise a formula for distress sharing of the river waters. If a formula is agreed upon by all the States, it will be placed before the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), headed by the Prime Minister, with the Chief Ministers of the States concerned as members.

In an attempt to advance a meeting of the CRA in view of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's nine-day foreign tour beginning on September 9, the Karnataka Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, arrived here today, with a delegation of senior party leaders, seeking a meeting with Mr. Vajpayee on the issue.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, also wrote to the Prime Minister today protesting the "undue haste'' in convening the meeting. She said Tamil Nadu was attending the meeting "under protest''.

Mr. Krishna held meetings here with the State Ministers, H.K. Patil, D.K. Shiv Kumar, D.B. Chandra Gowda, the former State Chief Minister, Veerappa Moily, and the two Union Ministers, Ananth Kumar and Basangouda Patil `Yatnal', and State officials.

However, an early meeting of the CRA — as requested by Karnataka — would depend upon the outcome of the Monitoring Committee Meeting, which would discuss the objections raised by Karnataka to the procedure and formula worked out by the Central Water Commission (CWC). Tamil Nadu had agreed to the formula in the last meeting of the CMC on August 9. Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said that a meeting of the CRA could be held only if a consensus emerged on the distress sharing formula. And the meeting would be meaningful only if all the Chief Ministers attended it. However, Mr. Krishna said that once the meeting was convened by the Prime Minister, the Chief Ministers were expected to attend.

In the last meeting of the CRA, while Ms. Jayalalithaa had insisted on the immediate release of water to Tamil Nadu based on the CWC's formula, Mr. Krishna took the stand that a formula was yet to be worked out. Subsequently, the meeting decided that the CMC would frame a formula by September 15 and the CRA could meet in the third week of September for the implementation of pro rata sharing of distress.

The Supreme Court, on an application filed by Tamil Nadu, ordered Karnataka on Monday to release 1.25 tmc water to Tamil Nadu everyday till the CRA meets to take a decision on the issue.

Krishna meets Sonia

Meanwhile, Mr. Krishna met the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and apprised her about the developments following the Supreme Court order on releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

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